cenozoicalice

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The evolution of whales by Julio Lacerda

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Florida scuba divers discover 50-pound Ice Age mammoth bone in river

Florida scuba divers discover 50-pound Ice Age mammoth bone in river

Good News Notes: “Two Florida scuba divers uncovered a mammoth bone possibly dating back to the Ice Age while diving in a local river, according to reports. Derek Demeter and Henry Sadler found the four-foot, 50-pound bone in the Peace River near Acadia last Sunday, calling it an “amazing” discovery. “Henry is my dive buddy,” Demeter, Seminole State Planetarium’s director, told FOX 35 Orlando.…

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July 4th Weekend, featuring the ghosts of Nature’s past

Originally meant to be a piece to give tribute to America’s fossils sites, it eventually became both a tribute piece to the USA’s paleontological creatures… and a warning. The Bison, The California Condor and the Bald Eagle all have suffered at the hands of human activity (deliberately so in the bison’s case), but each have came back from the brink… but there’s always still risk. Without conservation efforts, and the help from institutions of the EPA, the San Diego Zoo and the Smithsonian, all three would have simply joined the giants of America’s past…

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A pair Smilodon fatalis with a horse kill and two approaching Columbian mammoths in the background

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finally finished the older sketch though the saurophaganax needed more work. the second one is more recent

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Terra: The Member's Magazine of The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. 1989 Wall Calender: Treasures of the Tar Pits. Illustration by Mark Hallett.

Internet Archive

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Commissioned Art of Delta, a 45 year old Colombian Mammoth!

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Columbian Mammoth

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The Largest Elephants Head to Head by Jagroar

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The Songhua river Mammoth, Mammuthus sungari (1885)

Phylum : Chordata Class : Mammalia Order : Proboscidea Family : Elephantidae Genus : Mammuthus Species : M. sungari

Middle Pleistocene (600,000 - 370,000 years)

4,5 m high and 10 000 kg (size)

Eurasia (map)

Fossilized teeth are recovered, but skeletal parts are rare. The most complete skeleton of a steppe mammoth yet found was discovered in 1996 in Kikinda, Serbia. It has recently been mounted and put on display. The specimen is a female, which was about 3.7 metres high, 7 metres in length and with 2.7 metres long tusks an estimated mass of 7 tonnes when alive.

Another quite complete steppe mammoth was excavated in the cliffs of West Runton in Norfolk, UK; it preserves its jaws and teeth but is missing the upper part of its skull. A rare skull found in Auvergne, France, in 2008 will be examined by Dick Mol and Frédéric Lacombat in the Musée Crozatier in Le Puy-en-Velay.

In 1959 Zhou, M. Z described what he called a new species of mammoth, M. sungari, that gained recent notoriety as the largest proboscidean due to a 5.3 metres tall and 9.1 metres long composite skeletal mount based on two individuals found in 1980. However, Wei et al. (2010), who restudied the fossils referred to M sungari, considered this species to be a junior synonym of M. trogontherii. The authors state that some of the fossils are referrable to M. trogontherii, while the others can be referred to M. primigenius, according to morphological characters and measurements.

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Steppe mammoth, the largest of the mammoths and an ancestor of the woolly mammoth.  From (when else) the Pleistocene.

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Animal of the Day!

Steppe Mammoth (Mammuthus trogontherii)

(Photo from The Azov Museum)

Conservation Status- Extinct

Habitat- Northern Europe; Northern Asia

Estimated Size (Weight/Length)- 14 tonnes; 4.5 m tall

Diet- Leaves; Grasses; Shrubs

Time Period- Pleistocene

Cool Facts- The steppe mammoth was the largest mammoth of the Pleistocene, although not the largest elephant of all time. Being the ancestor to the wooly mammoth, the steppe mammoth had massive tusks that could reach 5 meters long on the bulls. Steppe mammoths most likely played a similar role to African elephants today. They would push down trees and create rivers with their tusks, playing a major part in the ecosystem. These mammoths most likely lived in small herds although their general ecology is lesser known due to so few skeletons being found. The steppe mammoth most likely went extinct due to a combination of climate change and overhunting from humans.

Rating- 13/10 (Ice Age baby 2: Electric boogaloo.)

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350000 years ago, just beyond the western edge of the icy Schwarzwald, spring has come to the mammoth steppe. A raven flies over a group of steppe mammoths enjoying a cold bath in the Oos river, while a Megaloceros grazes on some choice plants growing on the riverbanks. With the harsh ice age winter in retreat for a few months, a flock of greylag geese migrates north, a buzzard hunts, and a small pack of wolves observe a herd of steppe bison and some roe deer.

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I realised there’s paleoart I’ve done that I haven’t shared here! Here’s a silly piece of an Ambulocetus I did a bit back, inspired by this photo of a seal I saw.

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Panthera spelaea

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evolution is fun because you can say "whales used have hooves" and that's an entirely correct (although simplified) statement.