Mammut americanum (Kerr, 1792) - American mastodon skeleton (cast) from the Pleistocene of Florida, USA. (South Florida Museum, Bradenton, Florida, USA)
From museum signage:
Mammut americanum, the American Mastodon, is one of the most spectacular of the now extinct Ice Age mammals. Mastodons, belonging to the Order Proboscidea, were large elephant-like animals with heavy shaggy coats and two large upper tusks. The average mastodon’s shoulder height was 8 to 10 feet. Measuring 11 feet 4 inches at the shoulder, the South Florida Museum’s mastodon is one of the world’s largest and the largest ever recovered in North America. Massive size, on its last set of teeth, and arthritis in its backbone are contributing factors suggesting this giant proboscidean is probably an older male.
At Home in the Forest
Mastodons were forest-dwelling animals that browsed on twigs, leaves, shrubs, fruits, pinecones and needles, and mosses. Their teeth were rather primitive and characterized by rounded and pointed enamel-covered cones with close-spaced roots. Such teeth were well suited to clipping or crushing twigs, leaves, and stems. Their trunk not only functioned as a nose, but also as an appendage used to grab and manipulate objects.
Mastodons belong to the Order Proboscidea along with mammoths and modern elephants. Their closest living relatives are the Sirenia (dugongs and manatees). [Elephants] evolved in Africa about 35 million years ago and spread throughout Africa, Europe, and Asia. About 3.7 million years ago, [elephants] migrated to North America via the Bering Strait land bridge. A mastodon’s normal range was hundreds of miles, and individuals have been recovered from the Aucilla River, Ichetucknee River, Palm Beach County, and Wakulla Springs.
An Aucilla Giant
Our mastodon was found in 1967 by diver Don Serbosek on an isolated stretch of the Aucilla River in Jefferson County. The scattered bones were in a 20 ft. deep hole in the river bottom. This unique display is the only articulation done to date of this Aucilla mastodon. It is an exact and finely detailed cast of the fossil bones acquired by the Florida Museum of Natural History for research studies on the Pleistocene giant.
How did the Aucilla mastodon die? There are no recognizable butcher marks on the bones, but two projective points along with hundreds of carved bone needles were found in the immediate vicinity. This evidence implies human activity, but further analysis revealed the needles were more recent, probably ca. B.C. 300 to A.D. 200. Perhaps a hunt drove him into the river where he slipped into the deep hole and drowned.
The Aucilla Adventures
For Don Serbosek, the waterways of Florida have yielded a lifetime of adventure and discovery. One of the first underwater explorers of Florida’s rivers and springs, Don was used to finding an occasional ancient animal bone or early human artifact. However, a 1967 trip to north Florida’s Aucilla river turned a routine SCUBA dive into the find of a lifetime and nearly a lifetime of work.
Disciplined Discovery
There, scattered across the bottom of the isolated stretch of river bed where the Aucilla rises from an underground limestone caverns and soon sinks into another, were piles of bones. Mammoth and mastodon teeth littered the ground. The next weekend, equipped with SCUBA gear, Don and others set about to map the site. Bones, Indian artifacts, projectile points and bone needles were recovered and their locations noted. Then, 20 feet down at the bottom of a hole revealed by their underwater lamps, Serbosek saw the well-preserved skeleton of a huge mastodon with half of its lower jaw lying on top of a pile of bones. Many more trips were required to bring up the easily accessible bones, but no skull was found.
The Missing Skull
A dedicated search for the missing skull commenced. As he fanned away sand, searching with his fingers in the dark murky water, Don felt a large, flat rock. At first he passed it by, but something didn’t feel quite right. The rock was smooth and flat, not like the sharp, eroded limestone typical of the river bed. Retracing his progess, he eventually found it again and fanned away more and more sand. The rock grew bigger and bigger and began to curve downward. It was the skull, buried in a layer of blue clay.
Raising the 400 pound skull posed quite a challenge. A framework of steel pipe laced with a floor of heavy canvas and supported by eight inner tubes was designed to cradle the huge fossil. Four feet below the surface, the inner tubes were carefully inflated, and the skull emerged from the water.
On the surface, a large tank filled with water-soluble acrylic preservative was used to hold the precious fossils. As the bones soaked up the preservative, they slowly hardened.
A Lengthy Process
Meticulous paleontology takes a great deal of perseverance. Recovering the Aucilla mastodon took three years. Developing the techniques to make an accurate copy of of the fossilized bones took another ten years. Serbosek pooled his talents with Dr. Cliff Jeremiah of Jacksonville, a fellow member of the Florida Paleontological Society with a reputation for making remarkably fine replicas of fossils.
After 11 years of collaborations, refining the process on countless other specimens, the two men were ready to work on the Aucilla mastodon. From the first sighting to final articulation, more than 20 years and thousands of hours have been dedicated to the magnificent mastodon. This painstaking paleontological work was performed with the utmost care and pride. All who worked on the project know that there may never be another mastodon of this size and significance found in Florida. The South Florida Museum is proud to exhibit this unique Pleistocene mammal.
Classification: Animalia, Chordata, Vertebrata, Mammalia, Proboscidea, Mammutidae
Locality: Aucilla River, Jefferson County, northern Florida, USA
----------------------
See info. at:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mastodon
Tags: Mammut americanum American mastodon Pleistocene Aucilla River Jefferson County Florida mastodons skeleton skeletons bone bones fossil fossils mammals mammal proboscidean proboscideans Proboscidea
Mammut americanum (Kerr, 1792) - American mastodon skeleton (cast) from the Pleistocene of Florida, USA. (South Florida Museum, Bradenton, Florida, USA)
From museum signage:
Mammut americanum, the American Mastodon, is one of the most spectacular of the now extinct Ice Age mammals. Mastodons, belonging to the Order Proboscidea, were large elephant-like animals with heavy shaggy coats and two large upper tusks. The average mastodon’s shoulder height was 8 to 10 feet. Measuring 11 feet 4 inches at the shoulder, the South Florida Museum’s mastodon is one of the world’s largest and the largest ever recovered in North America. Massive size, on its last set of teeth, and arthritis in its backbone are contributing factors suggesting this giant proboscidean is probably an older male.
At Home in the Forest
Mastodons were forest-dwelling animals that browsed on twigs, leaves, shrubs, fruits, pinecones and needles, and mosses. Their teeth were rather primitive and characterized by rounded and pointed enamel-covered cones with close-spaced roots. Such teeth were well suited to clipping or crushing twigs, leaves, and stems. Their trunk not only functioned as a nose, but also as an appendage used to grab and manipulate objects.
Mastodons belong to the Order Proboscidea along with mammoths and modern elephants. Their closest living relatives are the Sirenia (dugongs and manatees). [Elephants] evolved in Africa about 35 million years ago and spread throughout Africa, Europe, and Asia. About 3.7 million years ago, [elephants] migrated to North America via the Bering Strait land bridge. A mastodon’s normal range was hundreds of miles, and individuals have been recovered from the Aucilla River, Ichetucknee River, Palm Beach County, and Wakulla Springs.
An Aucilla Giant
Our mastodon was found in 1967 by diver Don Serbosek on an isolated stretch of the Aucilla River in Jefferson County. The scattered bones were in a 20 ft. deep hole in the river bottom. This unique display is the only articulation done to date of this Aucilla mastodon. It is an exact and finely detailed cast of the fossil bones acquired by the Florida Museum of Natural History for research studies on the Pleistocene giant.
How did the Aucilla mastodon die? There are no recognizable butcher marks on the bones, but two projective points along with hundreds of carved bone needles were found in the immediate vicinity. This evidence implies human activity, but further analysis revealed the needles were more recent, probably ca. B.C. 300 to A.D. 200. Perhaps a hunt drove him into the river where he slipped into the deep hole and drowned.
The Aucilla Adventures
For Don Serbosek, the waterways of Florida have yielded a lifetime of adventure and discovery. One of the first underwater explorers of Florida’s rivers and springs, Don was used to finding an occasional ancient animal bone or early human artifact. However, a 1967 trip to north Florida’s Aucilla river turned a routine SCUBA dive into the find of a lifetime and nearly a lifetime of work.
Disciplined Discovery
There, scattered across the bottom of the isolated stretch of river bed where the Aucilla rises from an underground limestone caverns and soon sinks into another, were piles of bones. Mammoth and mastodon teeth littered the ground. The next weekend, equipped with SCUBA gear, Don and others set about to map the site. Bones, Indian artifacts, projectile points and bone needles were recovered and their locations noted. Then, 20 feet down at the bottom of a hole revealed by their underwater lamps, Serbosek saw the well-preserved skeleton of a huge mastodon with half of its lower jaw lying on top of a pile of bones. Many more trips were required to bring up the easily accessible bones, but no skull was found.
The Missing Skull
A dedicated search for the missing skull commenced. As he fanned away sand, searching with his fingers in the dark murky water, Don felt a large, flat rock. At first he passed it by, but something didn’t feel quite right. The rock was smooth and flat, not like the sharp, eroded limestone typical of the river bed. Retracing his progess, he eventually found it again and fanned away more and more sand. The rock grew bigger and bigger and began to curve downward. It was the skull, buried in a layer of blue clay.
Raising the 400 pound skull posed quite a challenge. A framework of steel pipe laced with a floor of heavy canvas and supported by eight inner tubes was designed to cradle the huge fossil. Four feet below the surface, the inner tubes were carefully inflated, and the skull emerged from the water.
On the surface, a large tank filled with water-soluble acrylic preservative was used to hold the precious fossils. As the bones soaked up the preservative, they slowly hardened.
A Lengthy Process
Meticulous paleontology takes a great deal of perseverance. Recovering the Aucilla mastodon took three years. Developing the techniques to make an accurate copy of of the fossilized bones took another ten years. Serbosek pooled his talents with Dr. Cliff Jeremiah of Jacksonville, a fellow member of the Florida Paleontological Society with a reputation for making remarkably fine replicas of fossils.
After 11 years of collaborations, refining the process on countless other specimens, the two men were ready to work on the Aucilla mastodon. From the first sighting to final articulation, more than 20 years and thousands of hours have been dedicated to the magnificent mastodon. This painstaking paleontological work was performed with the utmost care and pride. All who worked on the project know that there may never be another mastodon of this size and significance found in Florida. The South Florida Museum is proud to exhibit this unique Pleistocene mammal.
Classification: Animalia, Chordata, Vertebrata, Mammalia, Proboscidea, Mammutidae
Locality: Aucilla River, Jefferson County, northern Florida, USA
----------------------
See info. at:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mastodon
Tags: Mammut americanum American mastodon Pleistocene Aucilla River Jefferson County Florida mastodons skeleton skeletons bone bones fossil fossils mammals mammal proboscidean proboscideans Proboscidea
Knapper: Jason Green
-------------------------------------
This rock is silicified fossil scleractinian coral material from Florida, USA.
Tags: point points silicified agatized quartz agate coral corals fossil fossils scleractinian scleractinians Florida knap knapped knapper knappers knapping
Mercenaria permagna Conrad, 1838 - geodized fossil bivalve shell with calcite crystals from the Pleistocene of Florida, USA
Seen here is honey-colored, coarsely-crystalline calcite filling the interior of a fossil clam shell. Geodized fossil mollusc shells occur in some horizons in the Plio-Pleistocene of southern Florida - these include Mercenaria bivalve shells and large Busycon gastropod shells. Fluids rich in dissolved calcium carbonate filled the empty interiors of these shells and precipitated calcite crystals. The gray material on the specimen is a coquina-like matrix.
Classification: Animalia, Mollusca, Bivalvia, Venerida, Veneridae
Stratigraphy: may be from the Fort Drum Member, Nashua Formation, Lower Pleistocene (also referred to as the Ruck's Pit Mine Formation)
Locality: unrecorded / undisclosed site in Florida (probably a quarry / mine - possibly a site east of the town of Fort Drum), attributed to "near Okeechobbee"
Tags: Mercenaria permagna fossils fossil bivalve shell shells bivalves clam clams Nashua Formation Pleistocene Florida geodized calcite crystal crystals geode
Mammut americanum (Kerr, 1792) - American mastodon skeleton (cast) from the Pleistocene of Florida, USA. (South Florida Museum, Bradenton, Florida, USA)
From museum signage:
Mammut americanum, the American Mastodon, is one of the most spectacular of the now extinct Ice Age mammals. Mastodons, belonging to the Order Proboscidea, were large elephant-like animals with heavy shaggy coats and two large upper tusks. The average mastodon’s shoulder height was 8 to 10 feet. Measuring 11 feet 4 inches at the shoulder, the South Florida Museum’s mastodon is one of the world’s largest and the largest ever recovered in North America. Massive size, on its last set of teeth, and arthritis in its backbone are contributing factors suggesting this giant proboscidean is probably an older male.
At Home in the Forest
Mastodons were forest-dwelling animals that browsed on twigs, leaves, shrubs, fruits, pinecones and needles, and mosses. Their teeth were rather primitive and characterized by rounded and pointed enamel-covered cones with close-spaced roots. Such teeth were well suited to clipping or crushing twigs, leaves, and stems. Their trunk not only functioned as a nose, but also as an appendage used to grab and manipulate objects.
Mastodons belong to the Order Proboscidea along with mammoths and modern elephants. Their closest living relatives are the Sirenia (dugongs and manatees). [Elephants] evolved in Africa about 35 million years ago and spread throughout Africa, Europe, and Asia. About 3.7 million years ago, [elephants] migrated to North America via the Bering Strait land bridge. A mastodon’s normal range was hundreds of miles, and individuals have been recovered from the Aucilla River, Ichetucknee River, Palm Beach County, and Wakulla Springs.
An Aucilla Giant
Our mastodon was found in 1967 by diver Don Serbosek on an isolated stretch of the Aucilla River in Jefferson County. The scattered bones were in a 20 ft. deep hole in the river bottom. This unique display is the only articulation done to date of this Aucilla mastodon. It is an exact and finely detailed cast of the fossil bones acquired by the Florida Museum of Natural History for research studies on the Pleistocene giant.
How did the Aucilla mastodon die? There are no recognizable butcher marks on the bones, but two projective points along with hundreds of carved bone needles were found in the immediate vicinity. This evidence implies human activity, but further analysis revealed the needles were more recent, probably ca. B.C. 300 to A.D. 200. Perhaps a hunt drove him into the river where he slipped into the deep hole and drowned.
The Aucilla Adventures
For Don Serbosek, the waterways of Florida have yielded a lifetime of adventure and discovery. One of the first underwater explorers of Florida’s rivers and springs, Don was used to finding an occasional ancient animal bone or early human artifact. However, a 1967 trip to north Florida’s Aucilla river turned a routine SCUBA dive into the find of a lifetime and nearly a lifetime of work.
Disciplined Discovery
There, scattered across the bottom of the isolated stretch of river bed where the Aucilla rises from an underground limestone caverns and soon sinks into another, were piles of bones. Mammoth and mastodon teeth littered the ground. The next weekend, equipped with SCUBA gear, Don and others set about to map the site. Bones, Indian artifacts, projectile points and bone needles were recovered and their locations noted. Then, 20 feet down at the bottom of a hole revealed by their underwater lamps, Serbosek saw the well-preserved skeleton of a huge mastodon with half of its lower jaw lying on top of a pile of bones. Many more trips were required to bring up the easily accessible bones, but no skull was found.
The Missing Skull
A dedicated search for the missing skull commenced. As he fanned away sand, searching with his fingers in the dark murky water, Don felt a large, flat rock. At first he passed it by, but something didn’t feel quite right. The rock was smooth and flat, not like the sharp, eroded limestone typical of the river bed. Retracing his progess, he eventually found it again and fanned away more and more sand. The rock grew bigger and bigger and began to curve downward. It was the skull, buried in a layer of blue clay.
Raising the 400 pound skull posed quite a challenge. A framework of steel pipe laced with a floor of heavy canvas and supported by eight inner tubes was designed to cradle the huge fossil. Four feet below the surface, the inner tubes were carefully inflated, and the skull emerged from the water.
On the surface, a large tank filled with water-soluble acrylic preservative was used to hold the precious fossils. As the bones soaked up the preservative, they slowly hardened.
A Lengthy Process
Meticulous paleontology takes a great deal of perseverance. Recovering the Aucilla mastodon took three years. Developing the techniques to make an accurate copy of of the fossilized bones took another ten years. Serbosek pooled his talents with Dr. Cliff Jeremiah of Jacksonville, a fellow member of the Florida Paleontological Society with a reputation for making remarkably fine replicas of fossils.
After 11 years of collaborations, refining the process on countless other specimens, the two men were ready to work on the Aucilla mastodon. From the first sighting to final articulation, more than 20 years and thousands of hours have been dedicated to the magnificent mastodon. This painstaking paleontological work was performed with the utmost care and pride. All who worked on the project know that there may never be another mastodon of this size and significance found in Florida. The South Florida Museum is proud to exhibit this unique Pleistocene mammal.
Classification: Animalia, Chordata, Vertebrata, Mammalia, Proboscidea, Mammutidae
Locality: Aucilla River, Jefferson County, northern Florida, USA
----------------------
See info. at:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mastodon
Tags: Mammut americanum American mastodon Pleistocene Aucilla River Jefferson County Florida mastodons skeleton skeletons bone bones fossil fossils mammals mammal proboscidean proboscideans Proboscidea