ANCIENT ELEPHANTS OF PANAY ISLAND
The National Museum-Western Visayas Geology and Paleontology permanent gallery, inaugurated in January 2020, showcases fossilized teeth from two extinct elephant species: Elephas sp. and Stegodon sp. These remarkable finds were unearthed in Sitio Bitoguan, Jelicuon, Cabatuan, Iloilo.
In 1965, anthropologist F. Landa Jocano discovered a fossilized molar of Elephas sp., a member of the Family Elephantidae. This triangular-shaped specimen, weighing approximately 1.8 kilograms, features 13 lamellae and is estimated to be 750,000 years old, dating back to the Middle Pleistocene. Two years later, in 1967, the fossilized remains of a stegodont, a distant relative of modern elephants, were also uncovered. These elephants and stegodonts were the largest mammals to ever roam Panay Island.
The fossils were recovered from Pleistocene rock layers now recognized as the Cabatuan Formation. These discoveries provide critical evidence supporting the existence of land bridges that once connected the Philippines to neighboring countries, allowing large animals to migrate into the archipelago.