Anthracobunidae 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...

ns that lived in the early to middle 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...

 period.

They resemble the later Moeritheriidae in both size and cheek tooth morphology but lack their characteristic tusks. They are known only from fragmentary remains (mainly teeth) from Eocene deposits of the North-western part of the Indo-Pakistan subcontinent. These animals were probably amphibious and lived in marshy environments. They were relatively small with size ranging from 1 to 2 m in length. The family may be ancestral to both the Moeritheriidae and the desmostylia

Desmostylia

Desmostylia is an extinct order of marine mammals which existed from the Arikareean age of the late Oligocene epoch to the Tortonian age of the late Miocene epoch . Their dental and skeletal form suggests desmostylians were amphibious herbivores dependent on littoral habitats...

ns. The family might also be ancestral to the Sirenia

Sirenia

Sirenia is an order of fully aquatic, herbivorous mammals that inhabit swamps, rivers, estuaries, marine wetlands, and coastal marine waters. Four species are living, in two families and genera. These are the dugong and manatees...

, but this is disputed.