Description

The latest research indicates that there were only two species of mammoth in Florida. Some leading scientists now believe that some mammoths may have survived much later than previously thought. Perhaps as recent as 4000 years ago.

Mastodons were in Florida almost twice as long as mammoths and so they are more commonly found as fossils. Mastodons were generally shorter, thicker and more heavily built than the mammoths.  The males sometimes had two small lower tusks in addition to the large upper tusks. Both mastodons and mammoths were killed and eaten by early humans. Today, more and more paleontologists  believe that hunting them may have been what led to their extinction in America.