These elephant relatives had different teeth, different feeding habits, different lifestyles.
Mammoths are more closely related to elephants than mastodons are. The teeth of mammoths and elephants are large, flattened molars with complex ridges of enamel for cutting and grinding plants.
Elephants: large, plant-eating mammals with trunks, and their extinct relatives, including mammoths and mastodons
New features:
- Tusks enlarged teeth (second upper incisors) used for defense and to scoop up plants
- Trunk a strong, muscular extension of the nose with a prehensile tip
Mammoths and mastodons roamed throughout North America for millions of years, and survived until about ten thousand years ago. Remains of both have been found from Alaska to Florida. Some had wooly coats, and were well suited for life in cold climates.
Fast-frozen Woolies PICTURE CAPTIONS:
Mammoth carcasses have been found, intact, in the frozen tundra of Alaska and Siberia. Even their red blood cells were preserved. Molecular biologists analyzed proteins from a frozen baby mammoth to confirm that mammoths are most closely related to modern elephants.
- Mammoth
- Mastodon