The Denver Museum of Nature & Science will begin the
excavation of a significant Columbian mammoth fossil site near
Snowmass Village on Tuesday, November 2. Several mammoths and
a mastodon tooth have been uncovered by work crews at the site,
making this one of the most significant scientific discoveries in
Colorado history.
The original discovery of a single juvenile Columbian mammoth was
made by a bulldozer operator working on the expansion of Ziegler
Reservoir on October 14.
View photos from the excavation site on
Flickr.
QUICK FACTS
Columbian mammoth, Mammuthus columbi
Up to 13 ft. tall, up to 10 tons, lived 100,000 - 13,000 years
ago
Range: continental U.S. and Mexico
American mastodon, Mammut americanum
Up to 10 ft. tall, up to 6 tons, lived 2 million years ago -
13,000 years ago
Range: continental U.S. and Mexico
African elephant (for comparison), Loxodonta
africana
Up to 11 ft. tall, up to 8 tons, lived 1.5 million years ago to
present
Mammoths and mastodons are superficially similar to modern
elephants. One obvious difference between mastodons and mammoths is
the shape of their teeth: mastodons had conical projections on the
crowns of their molars, which were adapted for browsing, while
mammoths were grazers, and their flat molars had shallow ridges,
adapted for grinding coarse grasses. Mammoth teeth are somewhat
similar to the teeth of modern elephants.
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