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American mastodon
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Side-by-side illustration comparing the American mastodon (Mammut americanum), woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius), and modern African savanna elephant (Loxodonta africana), showing differences in size, body shape, and tusks, with a scale bar indicating 1 meter and 3 feet. American mastodon (Mammut americanum) A timeline diagram shows the evolutionary history of modern elephants, depicting Gomphotherium as an ancient ancestor branching into the woolly mammoth, American mastodon, Asian elephant, African savanna elephant, and African forest elephant, with illustrations of each species and labeled time periods from the Eocene to the present.
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American mastodon

extinct mammal
Also known as: Mammut americanum
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Side-by-side illustration comparing the American mastodon (Mammut americanum), woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius), and modern African savanna elephant (Loxodonta africana), showing differences in size, body shape, and tusks, with a scale bar indicating 1 meter and 3 feet.
Proboscidean size comparison Mastodons and woolly mammoths were hunted by some Paleo-Indians. These animals were similar in size to modern African elephants but, unlike the modern variety, they were adapted to ice age temperatures.

The American mastodon (Mammut americanum) was an extinct elephantine mammal that lived from the Miocene Epoch (23 million to 2.6 million years ago) through the Pleistocene Epoch (2.6 million to 11,700 years ago), possibly persisting into post-Pleistocene times in North America. Mastodons were heavily built, covered in long reddish-brown hair, and had distinctive low-crowned, ridged teeth and long, upward-curving upper tusks, with males also having short lower tusks. They likely fed on leaves. Their extinction is thought to be a result of climate change and human hunting pressure, which led to a decline in genetic diversity.1

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2 Britannica Sources
  1. mastodon
  2. mammoth

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