Exceptional discovery in France of a skull of mastodon, cousin of the elephant
Toulouse | A farmer in southwestern France discovered "by chance" a skull "almost intact" mastodon of the Pyrenees, "a cousin of the elephant", the only known of this species, told AFP officials of the Museum of Natural History of Toulouse.
This specimen, "very rare" according to the Museum, belongs to the group of proboscidians and the family of gomphotherium, animals that appeared in Africa and migrated to Europe 18 million years ago before disappearing there are about 1.5 million years.
"It was a kind of elephant with four tusks of about 80 centimeters, two in the upper jaw and two in the lower jaw," Francis Duranthon told AFP the director of the museum.
It was while doing work on one of his lots near Isle-en-Dodon, in 2014, that a farmer found bones, said Mr. Duranthon. Fearing to be "annoyed" by a horde of curious, the farmer, who refuses to disclose the exact location of this discovery, will take two years before contacting the Museum of Toulouse.
"It is in 2017, when we went there, that we realized the importance of the discovery, the farmer had in fact stumbled upon a mastodon, which until now was only known by four isolated teeth - two preserved in the Museum of Toulouse and two others in the Paris Museum "and which had been discovered near this skull in 1857.
"So we have a complete skull and this will allow us to specify the anatomy of this species," Duranthon said. "Today we are putting a face on a species that had become almost mythical," added Pierre Dalous, the curator of the Museum.
"The complete skull was removed from the field and brought back to the laboratory. It is caught in the rock, so we must now scratch centimeter by centimeter to clear the entire skull, we are at half, there are still six to nine months of work, "said the latter.
Posted from my blog with SteemPress : https://z22news.com/exceptional-discovery-in-france-of-a-skull-of-mastodon-cousin-of-the-elephant/