Clarifying relatives and ancestors

摘要

You twice erroneously describe the extinct woolly mammoth and American mastodon as ancient "ancestors" of today's elephants. They are actually fossil relatives of today's elephant species, as is made clear in the original research paper (N. Rohland et al. PLoS Biol. 8, el000564; 2010) on which the two items report. With the extensive range of expertise at the disposal of your journal, I am surprised at these slips.