Pygmy Mammoth Tooth Replica

Description

Pygmy Mammoth Tooth Replica is museum quality polyurethane resin cast. Pygmy Mammoth Tooth Replica measures 6.5 x 5.5 x .5, made in USA.

The Pygmy Mammoth or Channel Islands mammoth (Mammuthus exilis) is an extinct species of dwarf elephant native to the northern Channel Islands off the coast of California. It was descended from the Columbian mammoth (M. columbi) of mainland North America.

This species became extinct at the end of the Late Pleistocene during the Quaternary extinction event in which many megafauna species became extinct due to changing conditions to which the species could not adapt.

Dwarf Mammoth remains have been known on the northern Channel Islands of California since 1856. They were first reported in scientific literature in 1873. In 1994 the National Park Service called in scientists to inspect an uncovered, unidentified skeleton found on the northeast coast of Santa Rosa Island.

They found bones of the axial skeleton of a large land vertebrate and decided to excavate and dig up the skeleton. They recovered 90% of a mature male pygmy mammoth’s skeleton. The mammoth was about 50 years old when it died.

The small bones were preserved in life position, which represented that it had died where it was found rather than being scattered around the island. The bones were returned to the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History.

After the discovery of the skeleton, a pedestrian survey of the island began. This resulted in the discovery of 160 new locations of mammoth remains, the vast majority being found on Santa Rosa Island.

This was the first discovery of a nearly complete specimen of the Pygmy Mammoth. Fortunately, the skeleton was only missing a foot, a tusk, and a couple of vertebrae. The remains were covered by a sand dune, which prevented the bones from scattering and kept them intact.

Remains of M. exilis have been discovered on three of the northern Channel Islands of California since 1856: Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa, and San Miguel, which together with Anacapa were the highest portions of the now mostly submerged superisland of Santa Rosae.

The late Pleistocene elephant appears to have survived on the islands until the arrival of the humans associated with Arlington Springs Man around 13,000 years ago and the last known mammoth occurrence was 13 to12.9 thousand years ago which predates the later Chumash people’s arrival during the early Holocene, between 10,800 and 11,300 years ago.

Radiocarbon dating indicates M. exilis existed on the island for at least 47,000 years prior (which is the approximate limit of the dating method).
Modern elephants are excellent swimmers, and the ancestors of M. exilis most likely swam the 4 miles to Santa Rosae.

As the population of mammoths increased, the lack of large predators such as the dire wolf, Smilodon and the American lion and the loss of habitat caused by the rise of sea levels at the end of the ice age as Santa Rosae split into four islands favored smaller animals.

Because of this, the pygmy mammoths began evolving through generations as a survival mechanism to stay alive on the ever-shrinking Santa Rosa Island; their body size became smaller because it required less food and resources to remain energized and alive. After this evolutionary period, the mammoth had become a distinct species, the Pygmy Mammoth.

M. exilis should not be confused with the mammoths of Wrangel Island or Saint Paul Island, which were small races of the woolly mammoth (M. primigenius) and which died out around 1700 BC and 4000 BC, respectively.

The Pygmy Mammoth was able to thrive in all of the many different ecosystems found on Santa Rosae, such as high elevation plateaus, to dune, grassland, riparian and steppe-tundra ecosystems.

Remains of M. exilis have been discovered on three of the northern Channel Islands of California since 1856: Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa, and San Miguel, which together with Anacapa were the highest portions of the now mostly submerged superisland of Santa Rosae.

Pygmy Mammoth Facts:

Pygmy mammoth : Temporal range: Late Pleistocene to Early Holocene, 0.06–0.011 Ma
Scientific classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Proboscidea
Family: Elephantidae
Genus: †Mammuthus
Species: †M. exilis
Binomial name: †Mammuthus exilis

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Additional information

Weight	3.0 lbs
Dimensions	6.5 × 5.5 × .5 in