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A mastodon (mastós 'breast' + odoús 'tooth') is a member of the genus Mammut (German for 'mammoth'), which was endemic to North America and lived from the late Miocene to the early Holocene. Mastodons belong to the order Proboscidea, the same order as elephants and mammoths (which belong to the family Elephantidae).
Originally the African elephants, as well as the American mastodon (described in 1792) were also placed in Elephas. Cuvier coined the synonym Elephas mammonteus for the woolly mammoth a few months later, but E. primigenius became the widely used name for the species, including by Cuvier. [ 13 ]
Like those of many other capitosaurs, the head of Mastodonsaurus was triangular, reaching about 1.5 metres (4.9 ft) in the largest specimens. [1] Narrow grooves on the surface of the skull bones called sulci show it had sensory organs that could detect vibrations and pressure under water, similar to the lateral lines on fish.
An intact prehistoric mastodon jaw was discovered in the backyard of a Hudson Valley house after the homeowner initially saw a pair of teeth poking up by a plant, according to state officials.
Mammutidae is an extinct family of proboscideans belonging to Elephantimorpha.It is best known for the mastodons (genus Mammut), which inhabited North America from the Late Miocene (around 8 million years ago) until their extinction at the beginning of the Holocene, around 11,000 years ago.
On average, the American mastodon was around 5 meters long, 3 meters tall at the shoulder, and weighed between 3,500 and 4,500 kilograms. Living mastodons were covered with coarse, brownish hair, unlike modern elephants. Thick body hair on Pleistocene pachyderms was likely an evolutionary adaptation to harsh wintry climates.
The mastodon bones are slated to become part of a new exhibit at the Prairie Trails Museum in Corydon once scientists at the University of Iowa analyze and conserve the skull and other recovered ...
A 13,600-year-old mastodon skull was uncovered in an Iowa creek, state officials announced this week. Iowa's Office of the State Archaeologist said in a social media post that archaeologists found ...