Imprints of the Past

Mastodon and Mammoth Teeth

Though linked by a common ancestor, mastodons and mammoths had distinctive teeth adapted for different feeding strategies. Mastodons were browsers. They had molars--each with a cone-shaped cusp on an enamel-covered crown--ideal for chewing leaves and branches gathered by their trunks. Mammoths were grazers. Their molars had ridges, ideal for grinding coarse grasses. Mammoths had upper tusks that could grow more than 16 feet long. They probably used their tusks for defense and for clearing snow from grazing grounds. Both mammals became the prey of Homo erectus and Homo sapiens (including Neanderthals). One Smithsonian scientist has discovered mammoth kill sites 40,000 years old containing butchering tools fashioned by yet unidentified peoples.

Fossilized Mastadon Molars

Fossilized Mammoth Molars

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