Nearly 600-pound ice age mammoth tusk discovered in Mississippi

Taylor Nicioli, CNN

(CNN) — Amateur fossil huntsman Eddie Templeton usually knows erstwhile he’s onto something. Having scoured creek banks successful Mississippi since he was a kid, Templeton’s made respective stunning extinct mammal finds, including a mastodon mandible, galore bones from a elephantine armadillo-relative, and moreover a Saber-toothed cat’s ft bone. But his latest find whitethorn beryllium nan astir unexpected.

Templeton was wading done astir 3 feet (almost 1 meter) of h2o successful a creek successful Madison County connected August 3 erstwhile he stumbled crossed a elephantine tusk partially exposed from nan mud bank. The conditions weren’t awesome for fossil hunting, he said — nan h2o had been blocked from draining downstream and location were nary exposed gravel bars — truthful he hadn’t anticipated making a find of immoderate peculiar value that day. Coming crossed nan 7-foot-long (2.1-meter-long) tusk, which turned retired to beryllium wholly intact, and sharing it pinch George Phillips, nan paleontology curator astatine nan Mississippi Museum of Natural Science, proved him wrong.

Phillips confirmed nan tusk belonged to a Columbian mammoth, a distant comparative of nan woolly mammoth. Columbian mammoths lived during nan extremity of nan Pleistocene Epoch, making nan fossil anyplace from astir 11,700 to 75,000 years old, Phillips said.

“It was breathtaking to find a large portion of a tusk, certainly. But it was peculiarly breathtaking that it was a mammoth,” Templeton told CNN. “After nan geologists sewage there, and we started uncovering it and realized that it was nan full tusk, from extremity to base, it was moreover much exciting. So things conscionable sewage amended arsenic nan time went on.”

Prior to Templeton’s discovery, only isolated teeth of nan Columbian mammoth had been unearthed successful Mississippi, making it a first-of-its-kind find for nan region and offering a “rare window” into nan elephantine crystal property mammals that erstwhile roamed nan area, according to a connection from nan Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality.

Discovering Mississippi mammoths

While nan monolithic Columbian mammoth — which weighed complete 22,000 pounds (10 tons) and could turn to beryllium complete 13 feet (4 meters) gangly — lived crossed North America alongside nan mastodon, its fare mostly consisted of grasses recovered successful grassland biomes, which were uncommon connected what’s now nan eastbound seashore of nan United States during that period, Phillips said. As a result, its fossils are overmuch harder to travel by successful nan area.

“For every, say, 25 fragments aliases full teeth of American mastodon, we find possibly 1 mammoth bony astatine best. So, mammoths are proportionally rare, not conscionable pinch respect to mastodons, but to everything else,” Phillips said.

When Templeton first came crossed nan elephantine tusk, he assumed it was from a mastodon, having recovered respective remnants of nan animal connected his anterior hunts. It was aft nan section depository and authorities agency of earth science helped him unearth nan monolithic remains that Templeton began to person 2nd thoughts — mostly owed to nan fossil’s telltale curve.

The Columbian mammoth’s tusks are truthful curved that 2 could almost make a complete circle, whereas communal mastodons’ tusks do not curve astir arsenic much, Phillips said. The depository has galore bony fragments and moreover respective complete teeth from nan mammoth — location whitethorn moreover beryllium immoderate fragments of tusks from nan elephantine mammal that cannot beryllium distinguished from nan mastodon without having nan remainder of nan tusk — but a complete, intact tusk for illustration nan 1 discovered is particularly rare, he added.

“I was benignant of unfastened mouthed erstwhile I saw nan picture,” Phillips said. “I thought, ‘OK, well, cool, a tusk. Wait a second… it’s truthful curved. Holy cow, this is simply a mammoth tusk.’”

While unearthing nan fossil, nan section scientists simultaneously covered nan exposed bits pinch plaster to support nan fossil protected during extraction. The tusks grew successful rings, akin to really trees grow, Templeton said, which causes nan fossils to beryllium much apt to part erstwhile they barren up aft being taken from nan moist deposits wherever they are found.

The tusk — which weighed 600 pounds (272 kilograms) pinch nan plaster overgarment — is presently astatine nan museum, wherever experts will intimately show it while it dries retired and past dainty it pinch a cohesive for preservation. Scientists will besides request to reassemble nan vulnerable fossil, which collapsed into 2 pieces during transportation. Phillips said he hopes to person nan tusk connected show successful clip for nan museum’s yearly Fossil Road Show during nan first week of March adjacent year.

“I deliberation astir group are funny astir nan past, and these megafauna that existed during nan crystal property fascinate people,” Templeton said. “I’m judge location person been pieces of mammoth tusk recovered successful Mississippi, but astir apt not positively identified arsenic mammoths conscionable because they’re fragments. But this is nan first complete mammoth tusk recovered successful Mississippi. And truthful that’s beautiful cool.”

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