(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
 . . . . . . . . . .



American Mastodon [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2024-08-31  

Welcome to the Street Prophets Coffee Hour cleverly hidden at the intersection of religion, art, science, food, and politics. This is an open thread where we can share our thoughts and comments about the day. Let’s start off by going back in time.

The American Mastodon (Mammut americanum) was a distant relative of the ancestors of the elephant. During the Pleistocene, it ranged from Alaska to Florida. The American Mastodon stood up to 10 feet tall and weighed 5 to 7 tons. The American Mastodon flourished from about 17 million years ago until about 8,000 years ago.

Mastodons are different from mammoths and from other elephants in that it has a smaller size and simple, low-crowned teeth. In looking at the differences between mastodons and mammoths, Ian Lange, in his book Ice Age Mammals of North America: A Guide to the Big, the Hairy, and the Bizarre, reports:

“While individual teeth of mastodons have cone-shaped grinding surfaces, the eating surfaces of mammoth teeth are formed of ridges, like those of modern elephants. Mammoth skulls were domed while mastodon skulls were low-browed. And while mammoths were considerably taller, mastodons had proportionally longer and more massive bodies.”

The American Mastodon generally inhabited forests or woodlands characterized by spruce and evergreen trees.

Since 1875, paleontologists have been recovering fossils from the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles. These fossil remains include American Mastodons. Some of the mastodon fossils are on display in the La Brea Tar Pits Museum (also known as the Page Museum). Shown in the display below is a female mastodon and her six-year-old youngster which were trapped together in the asphalt.

The American Mastodon bone shown above is 13,900 years old.

Open Thread

This is an open thread. All topics are welcome.

[END]
---
[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/8/31/2262184/-American-Mastodon?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web

Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.

via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/