Michigan State Fossil

Mastodon

(Mammut americanum)

Adopted on April 8, 2002.

In 2002, the Mastodon,  Mammut americanum, became the state fossil. Fossils of the prehistoric mammal have been found in more than 250 locations in the state.

Senate Bill 397 designating the American mastodon as Michigan's official fossil was signed by Governor John Engler on April 8, 2002. The legislation, sponsored by State Sen. Thaddeus McCotter, was the result of a long campaign by Washtenaw Community College professor Dave Thomas, Slauson Middle School teacher Jeff Bradley, their students, and other students in Wayne and Washtenaw counties.

Fossilized bones of mastodons have been found through out the United States. Most commonly, mastodons ranged along the Atlantic coast and south of the Great Lakes. Their preferred habitat was open spruce woodland and forest.

"The word Mammut, meaning 'earth burrower', can be traced back to the Middle Ages, where eastern European farmers found the gigantic bones in their fields and believed they belonged to monstrous burrowing beasts" (Kurtén and Anderson 1980: 345-6).

They lived until the early Holocene, around 10,000 years ago. So far, the remains of mastodons has not usually been associated with human hunters.

The American mastodon (Mammut americanum) was a large, elephant-like herbivore. It ranged in height from approximately 7 feet (2.1 meters) in females, to nearly 10 feet (3 meters) in males; an adult mastodon could weigh as much as 6 tons (5400 kilograms). Its head was equipped with a flexible trunk, small ears, and tusks. The tusks grew straight forward, nearly parallel to one another, and curved slightly upward. Unlike modern elephants and extinct mammoths, the mastodon had cuspate molar teeth. The name "mastodon" is a Greek derivative—mastos, "breast," and odon(t), "tooth"- that references the animal's teeth, which have crowns consisting of distinct rounded cusps.

Mastodons were widely distributed throughout the world, and their remains are fairly common and well-preserved. Mammut americanum, the American mastodon, ranged across North America, from Alaska to central Mexico. The species may have persisted into post-Pleistocene times, bringing them into contact with early humans. Mastodon remains have been associated with fires, leading to the assumption that early humans hunted and ate them. Human predation may have hastened the extinction of this species, however it is not known why the mastodons died out.