Mastodon

Mastodon is an extinct genus of proboscideans that lived in North America and Eurasia. Its distinctive cusped teeth differed from the ridged grinding teeth of mammoths and modern elephants.

Proboscidea: The mammalian order that includes elephants, mammoths, and their extinct relatives. Mastodon belongs to this order, whose members share distinctive trunk-and-tusk anatomy.
American mastodon: Mammut americanum, a mastodon species that lived across much of North America until the end of the Pleistocene. This well-known species supplies most familiar evidence about the genus's North American life.
Charles Willson Peale: An American naturalist and artist who organized an early public display of a mastodon skeleton. His 1801 exhibition of a reconstructed skeleton made mastodons a public scientific spectacle.
Quaternary extinction event: The widespread loss of large animals during the late Pleistocene and early Holocene. Mastodons disappeared as part of this broader megafaunal extinction.
Mammutidae: An extinct family of proboscideans that includes the mastodons. This family places Mastodon among proboscideans distinct from elephants and mammoths.
Mammut pacificus: An extinct mastodon species identified from Pleistocene fossils in western North America. Its recognition demonstrates that American mastodon diversity was greater than once thought.
Mastodon (word): A name coined by Georges Cuvier in 1817 for an extinct proboscidean group, derived from Greek words for breast and tooth. The name evokes the mammary-like appearance of the fossil animal's cusped teeth.
Pleistocene megafauna: Large-bodied animals that lived during the Pleistocene epoch. Mastodons were prominent members of Ice Age megafaunal communities.
Mastodon tooth: A fossil tooth of a mastodon, typically bearing rounded cusps suited to crushing vegetation. Its cusped chewing surface is the genus's most recognizable anatomical distinction.
Mastodon State Historic Site: A Missouri fossil site preserving remains of mastodons and other Ice Age animals. Its excavations yielded a notable concentration of American mastodon fossils.

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