American Boy Finds Mammoth Tooth

Three-year old Kaleb Kidd from La Crosse, Wisconsin found a Woolly Mammoth tooth whilst playing at a family friends property just outside the town of La Crosse.  Mammoth teeth as they are so large and robust are found occasionally in this area.  The enamel in the tooth readily fossilises and is resistant to erosion.  For the Kidd family this find makes it a remarkable double, as grandfather, Gary Kidd had found a mammoth tooth in the Mississippi area several years earlier.

Woolly Mammoth Tooth

The American mid-west has revealed lots and lots of Mammoth fossils, both the Woolly Mammoth (M. primigenius) and the larger Columbian Mammoth (M. columbi) are known to have lived in this area during the Pleistocene epoch.

An illustration of a Steppe Mammoth (Mammuthus trogontherii) a typical member of the Mammoth family.

Ironically small children make excellent fossil hunters, not only are they usually bubbling over with enthusiasm, but their eyes being younger are better able to distinguish between objects on the ground.  Also because they are physically lower to the ground than adults this makes them better spotters.

Distinctive Ridges on the Tooth

The distinctive ridges of the tooth would have made it stand out from other rocks, now Kaleb and his grandfather need to find the rest of the mammoth!

The tooth has been provisionally dated from between 30,000 and 10,000 years ago.  Mammoths went extinct in the United States after the Ice Ages ended, perhaps their demise was hurried along with the improved hunting techniques of Clovis Man.

We have lots and lots of Mammoth products at Everything Dinosaur.  Woolly Mammoths appear regularly in our top ten prehistoric animal surveys.

A spokesperson from the award-winning, UK-based mail order company commented that the Woolly Mammoth was a perennial entrant in the top ten of our prehistoric animal surveys with prehistoric animal fans of all ages voting for these ancient elephants.

To view the range of prehistoric animal soft toys at Everything Dinosaur: Prehistoric Animal Soft Toys.