3.2cm Mammoth Tooth Molar Slice from South Carolina, USA (Pleistocene Epoch)

SPECIES

Mammuthus columbi

This is an interesting cross-sectional slice of a Columbian mammoth (Mammuthus columbi) molar collected from a river in South Carolina.

Mammoths are extinct relatives of today's elephants. The various species of mammoth were commonly equipped with long, curved tusks and, in northern species, a covering of long hair. They lived from the from around 5 million years ago to about 4,000 years ago, and various species existed in Africa, Europe, Asia, and North America. They were members of the family Elephantidae, which also contains the two genera of modern elephants and their ancestors.