“Unbelievable Discovery: Texas Deer Hunter Unearths Ancient Mammoth Tusk That Could Rewrite History!”
“We realized pretty quickly there was not more to the skeleton, just an isolated tusk that had been separated from the rest of the remains,” Dr. Schroeder explained.
After a two-day excavation, the research team successfully uncovered, extracted, and prepared the mammoth tusk for transport to Sul Ross State University for further study.
What Was The Columbian Mammoth?
Researchers determined that the tusk found at O2 Ranch belonged to a Columbian mammoth, a species that lived in North and Central America between 1.5 million and 11,700 years ago. Distantly related to woolly mammoths, Columbian mammoths populated the warmer areas of the American continent during the Ice Age.
Bones from the massive creatures show that they stood up to 13 feet tall and reached weights of 22,000 pounds. For reference, African elephants, the largest land mammals that currently walk the Earth, weigh between 12,000 and 15,000 pounds on average. Like other mammoth species, Columbian mammoths had long, curved tusks they used for foraging and fighting. However, they were herbivores that mostly consumed grasses and sedges.
Public DomainAn illustration of a Columbian mammoth, a species that roamed the Americas thousands of years ago.
Remains found in north and central Texas point to the presence of Columbian mammoths in the area’s prehistoric grasslands, though their fossils are rarely found in the Big Bend region of western Texas. The creatures coexisted with prehistoric humans until their extinction around 11,700 years ago. Researchers are now waiting for radiocarbon dating results that will reveal precisely when the owner of this tusk roamed the area.
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