Remarkable Discovery: Mastodon Tooth Found in California
A remarkable find with an exceptional state of preservation.
In California, researchers discovered a nearly perfectly preserved tooth of the Pacific mastodon, Mammut pacificus, while surveying a creek. The fossil was found by geomorphologist Brigid Lynch, who was studying the area as part of a project to protect the California red-legged frog.
The large, oddly shaped object immediately appeared to Lynch as part of an animal. To identify the find, she used Google image search and determined that it resembled a tooth from a mastodon of the Ice Age.
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Paleontologist Wayne Thompson from Pacific Paleontology confirmed this assumption. It turned out that the tooth belonged to an adult Pacific mastodon; these animals were shorter and bulkier than mammoths, with shorter, straighter tusks, primarily feeding on leaves and other vegetation.
Thompson called the find the most complete mastodon tooth specimen found in the area and one of the most impressive in his career. According to him, the condition of the fossil also suggests that other skeletal parts may be nearby.
Mastodons, Mammut pacificus, lived from 2.5 million years ago until about 11,700 years ago. Remains of these animals have been found in modern-day California, Oregon, the northern Rocky Mountains, and parts of Mexico. During the Ice Age, Colombian mammoths, western camels, and giant ground sloths lived alongside mastodons.
