The individual elephant living today in the Serengeti and the human living in Brooklyn today may have never gotten any closer than a cousin of a cousin of a cousin of a cousin of a cousin and all separated in existence by a hundred years or more.
I'm not sure how this is meant to work. If you and I are related by being descended from two people who were cousins, then those two cousins must have had a common grandfather, and who is
our common ancestor. Or if they were second cousins, they had a common great-grandfather, who was our common ancestor. Or if they were third cousins twice removed, then someone was the great-great-grandfather of one of them and the great-great-great-great-grandfather of the other ... and so on.
In general, I don't see how you could have a scenario where two people (or elephants, or whatever)
are related but
don't have a common ancestor. What else
is relatedness, when you get down to it?
(Obviously for the purposes of this discussion, being "related by marriage" doesn't count.)
So my brother and I have a common ancestor (my mother, to name but one); my father and I have a common ancestor (his father) my aunt and I have a common ancestor (my grandfather). My niece and I have a common ancestor (my grandfather again). My great-aunt and I have a common ancestor (my great-grandmother) ... and so on. You seem to be imagining that there's some degree of consanguinity by which two people (or elephants, or whatever) could be blood relatives but not have a common ancestor. Well, what is it?
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.