Amateur Fossil Hunter Unearths Massive Mammoth Tusk in Mississippi

elephant tuskPhoto byPawan SharmaonUnsplash

According to scientists, an amateur fossil hunter in Mississippi has unearthed a remarkably rare find-a stunningly preserved mammoth tusk, the first of its kind to be found in the area.

Eddie Templeton, a fossil enthusiast, was exploring the wilds of rural Madison County in early August when he stumbled upon a 7-foot-long (2 meters), 600-pound (270 kilograms) ivory tusk partially submerged in a streambed. The tusk, embedded in silt and clay along a steep cliff, prompted Templeton to contact the Mississippi State Geological Survey.

Representatives from the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) quickly responded, and a team of survey scientists excavated the fossil. Upon examination, the tusk was confirmed to belong to a Columbian mammoth (Mammuthus columbi), a species that roamed North America between 2.6 million and 11,700 years ago during the Pleistocene epoch. Templeton told The Clarion-Ledger:

When I learned it was a mammoth and not a mastodon, I got even more excited. I've never found any part of a mammoth. I always hoped to find a part of a mammoth, but that's pretty rare down here.

James Starnes, a MDEQ geologist, underlined the find's immense significance, stating that tusks "don't preserve well" in the region, making this discovery all the more extraordinary. He added:

This is not something you see every day," Starnes added. "This was a big, big animal.

Mammoth fossils are rare in Mississippi due to the creatures' specific habitat preferences. Unlike their relatives, the American mastodons (Mammut americanum), which thrived in various environments, Columbian mammoths preferred open grasslands. Consequently, only two regions in the area supported these majestic creatures.

The Columbian mammoths, which entered North America about 1.5 million years ago via the Bering land bridge, a now-submerged land bridge that once connected Siberia and Alaska, were massive animals, standing up to 15 feet (4.5 meters) tall at the shoulder and weighing up to 10 tons (9 metric tons). They roamed the continent during the last ice age, but as glaciers melted and their habitats diminished, along with increased human hunting, these iconic creatures were driven to extinction.

While Columbian mammoths died out between 13,000 and 11,000 years ago, their close relatives, the woolly mammoths (Mammuthus primigenius), survived on Wrangel Island, a Russian island off Alaska coast until about 3,700 years ago. Recent studies have proposed that a mysterious event, rather than inbreeding, may have led to the extinction of these last surviving mammoths.