Name: Mammuthus primigenius
Geologic Time: Pleistocene (50,000 years old)
Size (25.4 mm = 1 inch): 105 mm long by 63 mm wide, 75 mm tall
Fossil Site: Dogger Bank, North Sea (~100 km east of Great Britain)
Code: AAF399
Price: $225.00 - sold
 Description:
A spectacular example of a Series II (second) molar of the Wooly Mammoth,
this tooth comes from the North Sea, a byproduct of the fishing industry.
It has been stabilized to prevent deterioration. Like the modern day
elephant, mammoths had a total of 6 teeth, with only one tooth active
in the jaw at any one time. A baby mammoth’s first tooth was
similar in size to an adult human molar. By 6 months of age, the second
molar  began
forming, replacing the first molar by 18 months of age. This tooth
was replaced by the third, which lasted until a mammoth was about
ten years old, with each successive tooth replacing the one before
in conveyor belt fashion. The last molar would come into play by the
time a mammoth was 40, and would need to last for the balance of the
mammoth’s life. So what were mammoths doing in the ocean? The
Dogger Bank is relatively shallow, and would have been dry land as
a consequence of the fact that the glaciers sequestered an enormous
amount of water, resulting in a concomitant lowering of sea level
worldwide by as much as 100 meters. |
