On January 23rd, a new and spectacular exhibit opened at The
State Museum of Pennsylvania. The star attraction is a
completely articulated skeleton of an adult mastodon. A mastodon
is one of two types of elephants species that roamed
Pennsylvania during the Ice Age over 12,000 years ago. This
individual stood nine feet tall and would have weighed 8000 to
10,000 pounds in the flesh. They inhabited an open woodland
environment and browsed on twigs and leaves. The specimen was
discovered in 1968 near Marshalls Creek in the Pocono’s. The
other type of woolly elephant that lived in Pennsylvania was the
mammoth. These were larger than mastodons with high foreheads
and longer tusks. Mammoths grazed on grass and lived in an open
environment with bison and horses. That both elephant types were
contemporaneous, demonstrates the diverse nature of the forests
and grasslands that covered Pennsylvania during the Ice Age. The
mastodon skeleton is part of a larger exhibit called Tusks! Ice
Age Mammoths and Mastodons. Created