 |
| MAMMOTHS AND MASTODONS. Ancient Elephants. |
Believe it or not thousands of years ago some
elephants wore heavy fur coats. Actually, the mammoth was an ancestor of the modern
elephant. And mastodons were distant relatives of the mammoth. Neither of these
animals is around today. But at one time they roamed the Earth in great
numbers.
We know a lot about these ancient creatures because
scientists have found many frozen mammoth bodies, especially in the icy area of
Russia known as Siberia. Both beasts largely died out at the end of the last
Ice Age, about 10,000 years ago.
Mastodons and mammoths were a lot alike, but mastodons
were on the planet first. They appeared about 20 million years ago. They were
smaller than mammoths and had thick legs like pillars. Mastodons were covered with
lon2 reddish brown hair.
The mammoth didn't show up until about 1 1/2 million
years ago. Mammoths were the size of modern elephants. The woolly mammoth had a
thick furry yellowish brown undercoat with longer bristly hair over it. Like
the mastodon, the mammoth had small ears and very long tusks. Despite these dangerous
tusks, both animals ate only grass and other plants. The tusks may have been
for shoveling snow and ice to uncover food.
Mastodons and mammoths were around at the same time as
early humans. The people of the day hunted the animals, but hunting didn't make
them die out. Scientists think that the mastodon and the mammoth vanished because
the glaciers of the Ice Age destroyed much of Vegetation they relied on as
food.
0 Comments