What is Mastodon?
{{Taxobox | name = Mastodon | image = Mammut_skeleton_Museum_of_the_Earth.jpg | image_width = 250px | image_caption = Mounted mastodon skeleton, Museum of the Earth. | regnum = [[Animal]]ia | phylum = [[Chordate|Chordata]] | classis = [[Mammal]]ia | ordo = [[Proboscidea]] | familia = †'''Mammutidae''' | familia_authority = [[William Perry Hay|Hay]], 1922 | fossil range = early [[Pliocene]] – late [[Pleistocene]], 5.3–0.011 mya | genus = †'''''Mammut''''' | genus_authority = [[Johann Friedrich Blumenbach|Blumenbach]], 1799 }} [[File:Mastodon teeth.jpg|thumbnail|right|American mastodon molars at the State Museum of Pennsylvania]] '''Mastodons''' or '''Mastodonts''' are extinct elephant-like animals of the [[genus]] ''Mammut'' and the family Mammutidae. Mastodons became extinct about 11,000 years ago. Mastodons, with [[mammoth]]s, modern elephants and various older families, are members of the order [[Proboscidea]]. As adults they stood between 2.5 and 3 meters (8-10 feet) at the shoulder and weighed between 3500 and 5400 kilograms (4-6 tons). Mastodons were [[browser]]s on leaves and branches, as shown by their [[molar]] [[teeth]]. == Two species == ''M. americanum'' was the American mastodon, and ''M. pacificus'' was the Pacific mastodon. They are the youngest and best-known species of the genus. Mastodons disappeared from North America as part of a mass extinction of most of the Pleistocene megafauna.<ref>Dooley A.C; Scott E; Green J.; Springer K.B; Dooley B.S. & Smith G.J. 2019. ''Mammut pacificus'' sp. nov., a newly recognized species of mastodon from the Pleistocene of western North America. [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30944777/]</ref> == Recent discovery == Stone tools and bones from a butchered mastodon were found at the bottom of a river in [[Florida]]. After a four-year investigation, researchers decided that humans lived there and made a meal of a mastodon 14,550 years ago.<ref>Webb, Jonathan 2016. Mastodon meal scraps revise US prehistory. ''BBC News'' Science & Environment. [https://www.bb