American Mastodon
Mammut americum
🦣
Chordata
Mammalia
Proboscidea
Mammutidae
Mammut
Mammut americum
The American Mastodon — Mammut americanum was a massive Ice Age proboscidean that once roamed North America’s forests and wetlands. Unlike mammoths, mastodons had straighter tusks and molars adapted for browsing leaves, twigs, and branches.
Description
American Mastodon (Mammut americanum) — One of the last members of the mastodon lineage, this giant browser thrived in woodlands, swamps, and coniferous forests across North America. Adults stood 2.5–3 meters at the shoulder, reached 5–6 meters in length, and weighed 4,500–6,000 kg. Their skulls were lower and flatter than mammoths, with teeth specialized for crushing vegetation rather than grazing. Their tusks, sometimes over 5 meters long, were used for stripping bark, digging, and combat. Mastodons were covered in thick, shaggy hair, giving them some protection against Ice Age cold.
Quick Facts
Max Mass
Shoulder Height
Standing Height
Length
Diet
Trophic Level
9200
3
4.5
2.1
kg
m
m
m
Mixed Feeder
Herbivores – Grazers
Hunt History
Paleo-Indians in North America actively hunted mastodons for meat, bone, hide, and ivory. Kill sites suggest cooperative ambushes near lakes and bogs, where the heavy animals were more vulnerable. Overhunting, coupled with rapid climate change at the end of the Pleistocene, contributed to their extinction.
Earliest Archaeological Evidence of Human Predation:
Cohoes Mastodon (New York, ~13,000 years ago) — Mastodon remains showing cut marks and marrow extraction.
Mastodon kill site at Kimmswick, Missouri (ca. 12,300 years ago) — Stone tools found with mastodon bones, evidence of butchery.
Manis Mastodon, Washington State (ca. 13,800 years ago) — Rib bone pierced by a projectile point, the oldest direct evidence of mastodon hunting in the Americas.
Time & Range
Extinction Status
Globally Extinct
Extinction Date
Temporal Range
Region
13000
BP
Late Pleistocene
North America
Wiki Link
Fat Analysis
Fatness Profile:
Medium
Fat %
8
Est. Renderable Fat
736
kg
Targeted Organs
Marrow, brain, visceral fat
Adipose Depots
Visceral (perirenal/mesenteric), limited subcutaneous; marrow, brain lipids
Preferred Cuts
Long-bone marrow & braincase
Hunt Difficulty (x/5)
5