At the end of the Ice Age, there were three different kinds of elephants in North America: mastodons, mammoths, and gomphotheres. The San Bernardino County Museum in Redlands, California as a display that looks at these animals.
According to the Museum display:
“Mastodons, gompotheres, and mammoths all looked something like today’s elephants, but they were only distantly related. They had a common ancestor 30 million years ago.”
The American Mastodon (Mammut americanum) stood up to 10 feet tall and weighed 5 to 7 tons. The American mastodon flourished from about 17 million years ago until about 8,000 years ago. The mastodon browsed on branches and leaves.
The Columbian Mammoth (Mammuthus columbi) stood up to 13 feet tall and weighed up to 10 tons. The mammoth flourished from 16 million years ago until about 11,500 years ago. The mammoth grazed on grass. Mammoths are closely related to today’s Asian elephants.
In looking at the differences between mastodons and mammoths, Ian Lange, in his book Ice Age Mammals of North America: A Guide to the Big, the Hairy, and the Bizarre, reports:
“While individual teeth of mastodons have cone-shaped grinding surfaces, the eating surfaces of mammoth teeth are formed of ridges, like those of modern elephants. Mammoth skulls were domed while mastodon skulls were low-browed. And while mammoths were considerably taller, mastodons had proportionally longer and more massive bodies.”
Gomphotheres (Amebelodon and Rhynchotherium) stood up to 10 feet tall and weighed about 7.5 tons. The gomphothere flourished from 16 million years ago until about 11,500 years ago. The gompothere ate a variety of plants.
The Hall of Earth Sciences in the San Bernardino County Museum features life-size sculptures of an adult mastodon and its calf, representing prehistoric elephants that lived in California about 10,000 years ago, at the end of the last Ice Age. According to the Museum display:
“Mastodons, mammoths, and gomphotheres roamed inland Southern California during the Pleistocene. Mastodons were the first of these elephants to arrive and the last to disappear.”
The first elephants to migrate from Asia to North America were mastodon ancestors known as Zygolophodon. These ancestral mastodons arrived in North America about 17 million years ago.
According to the Museum display:
“Adult mastodons were too large to have natural predators, although calves would have been meals for giant cave bears and other large carnivores. But one humans arrived on the scene, mastodons were hunted for food.”
Paleontology 101
Paleontology 101: Columbian Mammoths at the La Brea Tar Pits
Paleontology 101: American Mastodons at the La Brea Tar Pits
Paleontology 101: The North American Camel
Paleontology 101: The California Pleistocene (Photo Diary)
Paleontology 101: A Paleontological Site
Paleontology 101: Some Ancient Horses