Title: The American Museum journal
Identifier: americanmuseumjo07amer (find matches)
Year: c1900-(1918) (c190s)
Authors: American Museum of Natural History
Subjects: Natural history
Publisher: New York : American Museum of Natural History
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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COLUMBIAN MAMMOTH 5 specimens of lizards are represented in the collection by extensive series. The results of this expedition are now being worked up in several papers, the molluscs by Mr. Bryant Walker, the vertebrates by Dr. Ruthven. THE SKELETON OF THE COLUMBIAN MAMMOTH. \E of the most recent additions to the collections in the Hall of Vertebrate Palaeontology is a skeleton of the Mammoth, Elephas columbi. This skeleton shows that the Mammoth had a very short back and long legs. Its body was not as massive as that of the Mastodon, and the pelvis is proportionately narrower. The head was carried more erect than that of the Mastodon, and the tusks, which point down at first, then curve forward and upward and completely cross at their points. The tusks of the ^Mastodon, on the other hand, continue farther downward before bending upward, and their distal portions turn outward. During the middle Pleistocene or Glacial Period three well-known species of Mammoth inhabited North America. The Siberian mam- moth, Elephas primigenius, was abundant in the northern part, of America, and bodies of animals of this species have been found in the ice and frozen ground of Alaska, the flesh and hair still preserved intact. The Imperial Mammoth, Elephas imperator, inhabited the southern United States and its remains are found in Texas. The third species, the Columbian Mammoth, Elephas columbi, inhabited the greater part of the United States, and its range extended as far southwest as Mexico. Teeth and bones of the last-named species have been identified from many localities, but the specimen now under consideration is the most nearly complete skeleton yet mounted in this country. This skel- eton was found on the farm of D. C. Gift, four miles east of Jonesboro, Indiana. That part of Grant County is level and was originally swampy and had to be drained. While enlarging a drainage canal across a part of the farm, a tenant encountered the skeleton only eight feet below the surface, where it lay articulated, with its bones in position just as the animal had fallen after becoming mired in the old swamp. The feet were not found, having been perhaps scraped out and lost during the first opening of the drain, hence the lower parts of the limbs and the

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