He was walking and found this. He couldn’t pick it up himself.

This is the first discovery of its kind in the region, according to Live Science, which writes about the discovery of a giant mammoth tusk weighing 270 kg and 2 meters long, in the American city of Madison, Mississippi.

We read that Eddie Templeton was walking through the Mississippi prairie. While hiking, he came across an item partially submerged in water that looked like a tusk from a distance. When he approached it, he noticed that he had probably found the remains of a mammoth or mastodon.

Templeton’s discovery became even more exciting when scientists arrived at the site. Their findings (as reported in a press release from the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ)) showed that an accidental finder had stumbled upon a Columbian mammoth tusk (mammoth pigeon).

– When I found out it was a mammoth and not a mastodon, I got even more excited. I had never found any part of a mammoth. I always hoped to find some, but It’s very rare here. “I think it’s a good idea,” Templeton said in an interview with local newspaper The Clarion Ledger.

The rest of the article is below the video.

James Starnes, a geologist with the MDEQ, confirmed that mammoth tusks are commonly found in the Mississippi region. “Not kept in good condition”However, Templeton’s discovery is different from similar finds in the area. The tusks he accidentally discovered were almost intact. This in turn means that scientists can take a closer look at the structure of the find, but they can also better understand the history of the Columbian mammoth that lived in Mississippi, USA.

The discovery of the well-preserved mammoth in Mississippi is not straightforward, Live Science reported. Although American mastodons once lived in the area (American mammoth), because they fed on local plants and moved through different environments, Columbian mammoths were more selective. They needed open, grassy areas, as we read, and so lived in only two areas of Mississippi.

Animals mentioned They lived in the Pleistocene epoch, from 2.6 million to 11.7 thousand years ago. Years agoThey arrived in North America about 1.5 million years ago. An adult individual reaches a height of 4.5 meters and can weigh up to 10 tons. It is estimated that the Columbian mammoth became extinct about 12,000 years ago, which was caused by melting glaciers and shrinking habitats, as well as intensified hunting by humans. The last known mammoth lived 3.7 thousand years ago on Wrangel Island (off the coast of Alaska).