MASTODON

[Terri Benning]

Mastodon at Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mastodon

Mastodons or mastodonts (Greek: μαστός "breast" and οδούς, "tooth") were large tusked mammal species of the extinct genus Mammut found in Asia, Africa, Europe, North America and Central America from the Oligocene through Pleistocene, 33.9 mya to 11,000 years ago.[1] The American mastodon is the most recent and best known species of the group. Confusingly, several genera of proboscids from the gomphothere family have similar-sounding names (e.g., Stegomastodon) but are actually more closely related to elephants than to mastodons.

The genus gives its name to the family Mammutidae, assigned to the order Proboscidea. They superficially resemble members of the proboscidean family Elephantidae, including mammoths; however, mastodons were browsers while mammoths were grazers.

History and distribution:

Mastodons first appeared almost 40 million years ago; the oldest fossil (Mastodon sp.) was unearthed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Fossils have also been found in Bolivia, England, Germany, the Netherlands, North America, and Romania and northern Greece.