Around 11,000-year-old intact mammoth tusk found in Mississippi

Amateur fossil hunter Eddie Templeton unexpectedly found a perfectly preserved mammoth tusk. Reportedly, this is the first-ever mammoth tusk fossil discovered in the Mississippi state.

Templeton discovered the tusk half-buried in the muddy riverbed in rural Madison County.

Soon after, he reached out to the Mississippi State Geological Survey. The experts carefully excavated the 7-foot-long (2-meter), 600-pound ivory tusk (270 kilograms).

“Eddie and the team spent the entire day carefully removing the clayey sand alluvial Pleistocene matrix by hand from around the tusk to expose the 7-foot-long fossil in its entirety. To our surprise, it had been deposited entirely intact.  This makes it an extremely rare find for Mississippi,” revealed the statement from the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ).

The examination revealed that this intact fossil tusk belonged to a Columbian mammoth (Mammuthus columbi) , a giant creature that roamed North America during the Ice Age.

Rare tusk find

Three ivory-tusked prehistoric giants — the mastodon, gomphothere, and Columbian mammoth — once roamed Mississippi.

As per the release, mastodons thrived in Mississippi’s varied habitats, making their fossils abundant. American mastodon ( Mammut americanum ) fossils are particularly largely found in Mississippi.

As compared to the mastodons, Columbian mammoths were picky eaters. They thrived in open grasslands, which were rare in Mississippi. Hence their fossils are rare to find in the state.

“Mammoths would have been at home in only a select few environments, particularly the prairie regions of Mississippi,” it added.

Lastly, the Gomphothere’s role in the state’s prehistoric ecosystem remains largely a mystery.

The intact tusk’s curve indicated it belonged to a Columbian mammoth rather than a mastodon. “Most fossil tusk ivory found around the state are just fragments and most are likely to be attributable to the more common mastodon,” the statement noted.

Experts to conduct detailed study

The massive Columbian mammoth belonged to the group of mammals called proboscidean, which also includes modern elephants.

According to the National Park Service, Columbian mammoths crossed into North America from the Bering land bridge roughly 1.5 million years ago, inhabiting the continent until roughly 11,700 years ago.

As per Live Science , these colossal animals could grow to an impressive 15 feet tall with a weight of 10 tons.

Once widespread during the Ice Age, mammoths faced dwindling habitats as glaciers melted. Human hunting further contributed to their extinction.

The Columbian mammoth became extinct between 13,000 and 11,000 years ago, but the woolly mammoth survived an additional 6,000 years.

The last woolly mammoths existed on Wrangel Island, a Russian isle off Alaska, until roughly 3,700 years ago.

Soon after the discovery, the researchers swiftly removed the fossil to prevent degradation from heat. The team used a protective plaster coating to support the tusk during its removal. In the coming days, the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science team will carefully clean and preserve the tusk.

The museum aims to acquire a better estimate of the mammoth’s age of death by counting the rings on the tusk. The museum wants to put the fossil on exhibit by March 2025.