2 Million-Year-Old Mastodon Skull and Tusks Unearthed in Chile

Now that's some mammoth discovery. The skull and tusks of a 2 million-year-old elephant relative -- a mastodon -- have been unearthed in Chile.

Construction workers building a hydroelectric power plant near the Chilean capital of Santiago dug up 4-foot-long, 6-inch-wide tusks as well as the first complete mastodon skull found in the South American country, the Daily Mail reports.

"When we were in the excavation process, we were aware that the bone continued," said Rafael Labarca of Chile's PDI Institute. "Practically the whole skull complete and in perfect condition, with its four molars and together with both tusks of almost 4 feet in length."

Jay LaPrete, AP

Bob Glotzhober, senior curator of natural history at the Ohio Historical Society, inspects the Conway mastodon exhibit on Dec. 22, 2010, in Columbus, Ohio. The skull and tusks of a 2-million-year-old mastodon have recenty been unearthed in Chile, the first such fossil ever found in that country.

Mastodons, ancient relatives of the modern elephant, first roamed many portions of the globe 40 million years ago. Paleontologists suggest this new find may have been the result of the animal sinking into a swamp that eventually preserved it.

Scientists hope to learn more about the DNA that mastodons have in common with the huge woolly mammoth. While the mammoth has been extinct for nearly 10,000 years, Japanese scientists plan to use frozen DNA to try to clone a new animal.

Mastodons grew to about the size of modern elephants and were more muscular, with furry coats to help them survive as they roamed North America until 11,000 years ago.

Elephant ancestry can be traced back nearly 60 million years where they evolved into a variety of offshoot species that inhabited nearly every continent on Earth.

Previous mastodon excavations have occurred in North America, and until this new find outside of Santiago, only fragments had been previously discovered in Chile.

Read more at the Daily Mail.

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