 The first members of the tribe Tragelaphini appear 6 million years in the past during the late Miocene.An extinct ancestor of the common eland ("Taurotragus arkelli") appears in the Pleistocene in northern Tanzania and the first "T. oryx" fossil appears in the Holocene in Algeria.Previous genetic studies of African savanna ungulates revealed the presence of a long-standing Pleistocene refugium in eastern and southern Africa, which also includes the giant eland.