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Mastodons

ramonmercado

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Mastodon Tooth Fossil Remains a Mystery

(AP) -- A mastodon tooth fossil found in an Ontario, Canada, attic remains a mystery, after a paleontologist concluded it does not belong with a skeleton here that is one of the world's most complete.

John Hoganson with the North Dakota Geological Survey climbed a ladder about 10 feet this week to take measurements inside the jaw of the skeleton in the North Dakota Heritage Center on the state Capitol grounds.

"The tooth at (the University of) Waterloo was larger than the ones ... here," he said. "The bottom line is it just would not fit."

The Earth Sciences Museum at the University of Waterloo has on display three mastodon teeth and a tusk that were found in an attic about a year ago and donated to the school. The skeleton in North Dakota's state museum came from the Highgate, Ontario, area more than a century ago.

Mastodons - elephant-like animals with large teeth and tusks - became extinct more than 13,000 years ago.

Hoganson traveled to the University of Waterloo last October to study the teeth. He said at the time that he was fairly certain one of them came from the Bismarck skeleton, based on wear patterns and the fact that the 4-by-3-inch tooth was from the same side of the jaw.

However, after measuring, he found "the tooth up there (at Waterloo) is from another mastodon," he said Friday.

"I'm not necessarily disappointed (but) it would have been nice ... to kind of close the book," Hoganson said.

He said the skeleton at the Heritage Center is about 80 percent complete. Other missing parts are a tusk, two leg bones and some toe bones.

Hoganson said the missing tusk apparently was never unearthed. The missing tooth, however, was.

"We have some old correspondence from 100 years ago that indicates that there might have been a tooth that was lost when this animal was on the road being taken around to different fairs and so forth," he said. "There was some indication that a tooth might have been taken during that particular period of time.

"Something happened to it. It got lost or stolen ... after the animal had been excavated," Hoganson said. "Possibly. it may turn up."

Peter Russell, curator of the Earth Sciences Museum at Waterloo, was out of the office and not available for comment Friday. He said late last year that he would like to keep the mastodon tooth even if it belonged to the Bismarck skeleton.

Hoganson said Friday that he would not have asked for the tooth even had it came from the North Dakota skeleton.

"The Highgate mastodon came from that part of the world," he said. "It would have been nice to have part of it on display there, too."

http://www.physorg.com/printnews.php?newsid=89800282
 
Four years ago, a bulldozer operator turned over some bones during construction at Ziegler Reservoir near Snowmass Village, Colorado. Scientists from the Denver Museum of Nature & Science were called to the scene and confirmed the bones were those of a juvenile Columbian mammoth, setting off a frenzy of excavation, scientific analysis, and international media attention. This dramatic and unexpected discovery culminates this month with the publication of the Snowmastodon Project Science Volume in the international journal Quaternary Research. ...

The Snowmastodon site was an ancient lake that filled with sediment between 140,000 and 55,000 years ago preserving a series of Ice Age fossil ecosystems. Particularly fortuitous is the high-elevation locale, providing first-time documentation of alpine ecosystems during the last interglacial period between about 130,000 and 110,000 years ago. Because scientists were able to collect and study such a wide range of fauna and flora--from tiny specks of pollen to the bones of giant mastodons--the site emerged as a trove of information that Miller said will inspire future research for years to come. ...

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 111853.htm
 
Memorial Mastodon tooth.

APTOS, Calif. | A woman taking a Memorial Day weekend stroll on a California beach found something unusual sticking out of the sand: a tooth from an ancient mastodon.

But then the fossil vanished, and it took a media blitz and a kind-hearted jogger to find it again.

Jennifer Schuh found the foot-long tooth sticking out of the sand on Friday at the mouth of Aptos Creek on Rio Del Mar State Beach, located off Monterey Bay in Santa Cruz County on California’s central coast.

“I was on one side of the creek and this lady was talking to me on the other side and she said what’s that at your feet,” Schuh recounted. “It looked kind of weird, like burnt almost.”

Schuh wasn’t sure what she had found. So she snapped some photos and posted them on Facebook, asking for help.

The answer came from Wayne Thompson, paleontology collections advisor for the Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History.

Thompson determined that the object was a worn molar from an adult Pacific mastodon, an extinct elephant-like species.

“This is an extremely important find,” Thompson wrote, and he urged Schuh to call him.

But when they went back to the beach, the tooth was gone.

A weekend search failed to find it. Thompson then sent out a social media request for help in finding the artifact. The plea made international headlines.

On Tuesday, Jim Smith of nearby Aptos called the museum. ...

https://sentinelcolorado.com/nation...alifornia-beach-finds-ancient-mastodon-tooth/
 
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