Mastodon Male Skull Replica

$4,280.00

Mastodons were large elephant-like mammals that lived 33 million years ago until 10,000 years ago. Mastodon fossils have been found on every continent except Antarctica and Australia.

Description

Mastodon Male Skull Replica measures 44 inches. Mastodon Male Skull Replica is museum quality polyurethane cast. 2-part skull (separate cranium & jaw). Made in USA. Skull is a BYU specimen with Stand. Mounted and Crated. Mammut americanum is the scientific name. Price includes 100.00 wooden crate. Please call 509-951-3557 for shipping quote. Our precise skull can be used as a teaching tool, museum skull exhibit, home décor skull, or office décor skull.

Mastodons or Mammut americanum are any species of extinct proboscideans in the genus Mammut (family Mammutidae), distantly related to elephants, that inhabited North and Central America during the late Miocene or late Pliocene up to their extinction at the end of the Pleistocene 10,000 to 11,000 years ago.

They lived in herds and were predominantly forest-dwelling animals that fed on a mixed diet obtained by browsing and grazing with a seasonal preference for browsing, similar to living elephants.

Mammut americanum, the American mastodon, and M. pacificus, the Pacific mastodon, are the youngest and best-known species of the genus. They disappeared from North America as part of a mass extinction of most of the Pleistocene megafauna, widely believed to have been caused by overexploitation by Clovis hunters.

Modern reconstructions based on partial and skeletal remains reveal that mastodons were very similar in appearance to elephants and, to a lesser degree, though not closely related to either one. Compared to elephants, they had shorter legs, a longer body and were more heavily muscled, a build similar to that of the current Asian elephants.

Like modern elephants, the females were smaller than the males. They had a low and long skull with long curved tusks, with those of the males being more massive and more strongly curved. They had cusp-shaped teeth, very different from mammoth and elephant teeth (which have a series of enamel plates), well-suited for chewing leaves and branches of trees and shrubs.

Mastodons or Mammut americanum have been characterized as predominantly browsing animals. Of New World proboscids, they appear to have been the most consistent in browsing rather than grazing.

Most accounts of gut contents have identified coniferous twigs as the dominant element in their diet. Study of Mammut americanum teeth microwear patterns indicates that they could adjust their diet according to the ecosystem, with regionally specific feeding patterns corresponding to boreal forest versus cypress swamps.

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Additional information

Weight 50 lbs
Dimensions 44 in
Mastodon Facts

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Proboscidea
Family: †Mammutidae
Genus: †Mammut
Type species: †Elephas americanum
Species: †M. americanum
Conservation Status: Extinct