Mastodons

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​Mastodons were primarily browsers who tended more toward woody plants while mammoths favored grasslands. Mastodons were somewhat shorter and stockier than mammoths and their lives may have resembled those of the modern African forest elephants. Wisconsin hosted an abundant population of "furry elephants" (both mastodons and mammoths)
during the Ice Age. Bones and teeth have been discovered at a number of sites across the state and specimens are on display
​at museums in Kenosha, Milwaukee, and Madison.

Boaz Mastodon

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This is the skeleton of the "Boaz Mastodon," discovered in 1897 just west of Richland Center, Wisconsin. It is now on display at the University of Wisconsin Geology Museum in Madison. This creature was part of the inspiration for Journeys: An Ice Age Adventure.

Mastodon bones and teeth are found throughout the Midwest and sometimes yield evidence of humans butchering them.

Check out new research into the Boaz Mastodon at these links. The new discoveries reference the "Boaz-Anderson Mills Mastodon" and are fascinating!

http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/researcher-unravels-century--old-wooly-tale-to-find-truth-behind-legendary-massive-bones-b99502786z1-304635421.html

http://www.biotech.wisc.edu/webcams?lecture=20150527_1900

Explore the UW Geology Museum.

http://www.geologymuseum.org/

Check out the pictures of a mastodon tooth discovered by kids in Iowa!
​  http://www.uiu.edu/ocm/news/2013/jul/mastodon-tooth.html

Check out The Elephant Listening Project and the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust (Orphan's Project) to learn about mastodons through the lives of their modern cousins.

http://www.birds.cornell.edu/brp/elephant/

http://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/

This link describes the probable role of mastodons in their ecosystem and warns of impending danger regarding today's forest elephant population.
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/extinction-countdown/2013/03/01/forest-elephants-wiped-out-ecosystem/

​A look at how elephants communicate over long distance, and quite likely, mammoths and mastodons as well.
​https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nII9yngRuac

​60 Minutes piece on forest elephants and their "language."
​https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owXlAQ4-4o0

"What's Inside an Elephant's Trunk?" video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjpRgi-73bU

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