Numidotheriidae is an extinct family of primitive proboscidea

Proboscidea

Proboscidea is a taxonomic order containing one living family, Elephantidae, and several extinct families. This order was first described by J. Illiger in 1881 and encompasses the trunked mammals...

n that lived from the late Paleocene

Paleocene

The Paleocene or Palaeocene, the "early recent", is a geologic epoch that lasted from about . It is the first epoch of the Palaeogene Period in the modern Cenozoic Era...

 to the early Eocene

Eocene

The Eocene Epoch, lasting from about 56 to 34 million years ago , is a major division of the geologic timescale and the second epoch of the Paleogene Period in the Cenozoic Era. The Eocene spans the time from the end of the Palaeocene Epoch to the beginning of the Oligocene Epoch. The start of the...

 periods of North Africa.

Fragmentary fossils (mainly teeth) of the early Eocene genera, Daouitherium

Daouitherium

Daouitherium is an extinct genus of early proboscidean that lived during the early Eocene some 55 million yers ago of North Africa....

and Phosphatherium

Phosphatherium

Phosphatherium is an extinct genus of primitive proboscidean that lived during the Paleocene to early Eocene some 56 million years ago of North Africa....

have been found in the Ouled Abdun Basin, Morocco

Morocco

Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...

. Numidotherium

Numidotherium

Numidotherium is an extinct genus of early proboscidean discovered in 1984, that lived during the middle Eocene some 46 million years ago of North Africa, weight 200 kilograms....

is known from an almost complete skeleton from late early Eocene deposits in southern Algeria

Algeria

Algeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria , also formally referred to as the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of Northwest Africa with Algiers as its capital.In terms of land area, it is the largest country in Africa and the Arab...

 and Libya

Libya

Libya is an African country in the Maghreb region of North Africa bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west....

. Compared to modern elephants, the Numidotheriidae were quite small. Phosphatherium for instance was only 60 cm long and weighted approximately 15 kg. Numidotherium was about 1 m in length. They occupied a similar ecological niche than the modern hippopotamus

Hippopotamus

The hippopotamus , or hippo, from the ancient Greek for "river horse" , is a large, mostly herbivorous mammal in sub-Saharan Africa, and one of only two extant species in the family Hippopotamidae After the elephant and rhinoceros, the hippopotamus is the third largest land mammal and the heaviest...

 and the related early proboscid Moeritherium

Moeritherium

Moeritherium is a genus consisting of several species. These prehistoric mammals are related to the elephant and, more distantly, the sea cow...

, feeding on soft aquatic plants in marshy environments. Numidotheriidae are not believed to be direct ancestors of modern elephants, but a collateral branch.