ANIMALS: Remember our recent column about the history of bison in this region?
The reader who told us about the pamphlet we described wrote back to remind us of another significant piece of history in the region — the Randolph, N.Y., mammoth.
“The Cattaraugus County Museum in Machias, N.Y., in 2016 had a display of the skull and tusk of the Randolph Mammoth, a Columbian mammoth which was discovered during construction of a pond at the New York State fish hatchery in Randolph.
“It’s age was estimated at 13,000 years, and the tusk weighed 75 pounds. For what it’s worth, Columbian mammoths were slightly larger, measuring 12 to 14 feet at the shoulder compared to the Wooly mammoth.
“Mammoths’ teeth were flat like those of present-day elephants, thus adapted for a diet of grasses or low-lying vegetation. Mastodons’ teeth were pointed indicating a diet of tree leaves or fruit-bearing trees,” the reader wrote.
We found some more on Columbian mammoths from the National Park Service.
“The Columbian mammoth (Mammuthus columbi) first showed up in North America about one million years ago. It evolved from an earlier mammoth species that had crossed into North America early in the Pleistocene epoch. Just who exactly this ancestor was is still debated; different sources report southern, imperial, or steppe mammoths as the possible culprit. Regardless of its family history, the Columbian mammoth quickly established itself in North America, migrating throughout almost the entire continent. Its range stretched from Canada all the way down to Nicaragua and Honduras.”
The park service information indicated the Columbian mammoth didn’t look the same as the wooly mammoth.
“It was actually bigger, standing several feet taller than the woolly mammoth. It also boasted large tusks up to 16 feet (almost five meters) long. Other than size, the major difference between the two mammoths was hair. While the woolly mammoth was named for its thick coat, the Columbian mammoth probably did not have much hair. Its home in North America was generally warmer than the woolly mammoth’s homeland of Eurasia, so it did not need as much hair to stay warm.”
