7.7" Partial Southern Mammoth Molar - Hungary

This is a 7.7" fossil partial molar of a Southern Mammoth (Mammuthus meridionalis), from Hungary and is between eight hundred thousand and one million years old. This tooth shows heavy wear from fossilization but the prisms (hard enamel structures), dentine and cementum are in good condition. This specimen has the substrate that in which it fossilized, still attached.

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Mammuthus meridionalis, or the southern mammoth, is an extinct species of mammoth endemic to Europe and central Asia from the Gelasian stage of the Early Pleistocene, living from 2.5 to 1.5 million years ago. M. meridionalis is one of the largest proboscideans to have ever lived, estimated about 4 meters (13 feet) tall and weighing 8 to 10 tons. Its molars had low crowns and a small number of thick enamel ridges, adapted to a woodland diet of leaves and shrubs. This indicates it lived in a relatively warm climate and probably lacked the dense fur of the more recent Woolly Mammoth.


These Pleistocene fossils were dredged up by fishing trawlers in the the North Sea between Britain and Denmark. Fishermen routinely find mammoth teeth and many Ice Age fossils in their nets: given the chance that a fossil is accidentally gathered in a net is slim, the sea floor is probably littered with the remains of millions of animals. The cold temperatures and low-oxygen environment of the North Sea have aided in the preservation of these teeth and bones.



While these fossils have been pulled up in nets for more than a century, they used to be frequently discarded. It wasn't until the past two decades that this material has begun to be systematically collected and studied. By recording the locations of their finds and allowing scientists to make observations before the more common material is made available, much has been learned about the fauna that once roamed the land that now lies 30 to 150 feet below the North Sea waters.

You can read more information about this at the following link.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/the-watery-grave-of-europes-monsters-1744973.html
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DETAILS
SPECIES
Mammuthus meridionalis
LOCATION
Hungary
SIZE
7.7" long, 5.6" tall
CATEGORY
SUB CATEGORY
ITEM
#111884
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