Museum researchers are now dedicated to accurately establishing the animal’s age, eating habits and health.
A complete jaw of a mastodon that lived in the Ice Age appeared in the backyard of a house in Orange County, New York, where the remains of fifty specimens from that time have been found.
The New York State Museum – where the remains are located – reported this discovery, Efe reported on Wednesday.
Museum researchers are now dedicated to accurately establishing the animal’s age, eating habits and health – it is known to be an adult specimen – before being able to present the remains to the public next year.
It was a resident of Scotchtown, about two hours north of New York City, who discovered in his backyard two strange stones that had emerged from the ground while he was cleaning his garden: they were two complete mastodon teeth, and beneath that pair of teeth he found two more, until he decided to call museum experts.
Excavations have so far exposed the entire jaw and fragments of a rib and one of the animal’s legs, but new ones may continue to emerge as work progresses.
Mastodons are a species similar to mammoths and elephants, which thrived in the North American Ice Age but disappeared at the end of the Pleistocene, more than 10,000 years ago.
