Woolly Mammoth Teeth
They're back! These massive specimens were definitely one of the most popular finds from last year's Tucson buying trip. We weren't sure if we'd be able to get them again but, we were pleasantly surprised when we did.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with these behemoths of days long gone, they are practically the mascot of the middle Pleistocene. They were large furry elephants in appearance and were perfectly adapted to living in a time when sheets of ice covered large parts of North America, Europe, and Asia. During this time, early Paleo-Americans lived alongside these monolithic mammals and forensic evidence suggests they even hunted them.
About the size of an African elephant, a woolly mammoth stood between 10-12 ft. tall, weighed roughly 6-8 tons and consumed more than 440 lbs. of grass each day. That is a ridiculous amount of grass when you really think about it. When you're chowing down on that much vegetation, it makes sense to have a serious set of pearly whites up to the task. As you can see here, they definitely did.
Like many giant animals of the Ice Age, the woolly mammoth went extinct as the climate warmed at the end of the last glacial period. Fossils from North America and Asia indicate woolly mammoths disappeared from the mainland around 12,000 years ago. Remarkably, they managed to survive on small Arctic islands off northern Siberia until around 1650 BC. That’s over a thousand years after the Pyramids at Giza were built! Not only were they grass eating machines, they were survivors that almost made it to modern times. Speaking of mammoths grazing in modern times, that could still be in the cards for them.
The woolly mammoth has been a hot topic of debate in recent years. Using the flash frozen body of a baby mammoth, scientists have been wrestling with the idea of resurrecting the long extinct creature. It’s really awe inspiring that we now possess the knowledge to resurrect the mammoth but the ethics behind are a bit questionable. We seem to remember a movie where something along these lines happens and it ends poorly for everyone… Anyways.
If you're looking for a full mammoth tooth, we got you covered. Check this impressive specimen out. It's another "wow I can't believe we found this" fossil we got this year.
We also sourced these mammoth tooth slices. They are a budget friendly alternative but no less impressive.
Stay tuned for more fossils and minerals coming soon. This is just the tip of the “really cool stuff coming your way” iceberg.
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