Mastodon

From Encyclopedia Jr, free information reference for Kids

This article is about the prehistoric elephant-like animal. For other uses of the word see Mastodon (disambiguation)

Mastodon

Mastdodon skeleton

Conservation status: Prehistoric

Scientific classification

Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Proboscidea
Family:	Mammutidae Hay, 1922
Genus:	Mammut

Mastodons or Mastodonts are members of the extinct genus Mammut of the order Proboscidea and form the family Mammutidae; they resembled, but were distinct from, the woolly mammoth which belongs to the family Elephantidae.

1 Habitat
2 Characteristics
3 Extinction
4 Reference
5 External links

[edit] Habitat

The American mastodon (Mammut americanum) lived in North America. Mastodons first appeared almost four million years ago and became extinct about 10,000 years ago, at the same time as most other Pleistocene megafauna. Though their habitat spanned a large territory, mastodons were most common in the Ice age spruce forests of Eastern United States, as well as in warmer lowland environments.^[1] Their remains have been found as far as 300 kilometers offshore in Northeastern United States, in areas that were dry land during the low sea level stand of the last ice age.^[2] There have been, however, findings of mastodon fossils in South America.

[edit] Characteristics

While mastodons were furry like woolly mammoths, and similar in height at roughly three meters at the shoulder, the resemblance was superficial. They differed from mammoths primarily in the blunt, conical shape of their teeth [1], which were more suited to chewing leaves than the high-crowned teeth mammoths used for grazing; the name mastodon (or mastodont) means mastoid teeth (Greek μαστός and οδούς "nipple tooth"), and is also an obsolete name for their genus. Their skulls were larger and flatter than those of mammoths, while their skeleton was stockier and more robust.^[3] Mastodons also seem to have lacked the undercoat characteristic of mammoths.^[3]

The tusks of the mastodon sometimes exceeded five meters in length, and were nearly horizontal, another contrast with more strongly curved mammoth tusks.^[3] Young males had vestigial lower tusks that were lost in adulthood.^[3] The tusks were probably used to break branches and twigs; one tusk is often shorter than the other, suggesting that, like humans, mastodons may have had laterality.^[3]

[edit] Extinction

The meat of mastodons was a food source for early humans. Archaeologists are still trying to determine what role, if any, the early human settlers of North America played in the extinction of the mastodon.

Recent studies by two scientists concluded that tuberculosis may have been partly responsible for the extinction of the Mastodon 10,000 years ago.[2]

[edit] Reference

^ Björn Kurtén and Elaine Anderson, Pleistocene Mammals of North America, (New York: Columbia UP, 1980), p. 344.
^ Kurtén and Anderson, p. 344.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e Kurtén and Anderson, p. 345

[edit] External links

Categories: Mastodons | Pleistocene mammals | Pleistocene extinctions