Rare Seven-Foot Mammoth Tusk Unearthed in Mississippi Creek

A local man spotted a fully intact seven-foot-long mammoth tusk sticking out of a Mississippi creek bank earlier this month. The gargantuan fossil is thought to have belonged to a Columbian mammoth (Mammuthus columbi), a relative of the woolly mammoth not commonly found in Mississippi. The discovery marks the first time a fully intact tusk of this species has been unearthed in the state.

Fossil hunter and collector Eddie Templeton was out on one of his regular hunts when he stumbled across the prehistoric treasure in rural Madison County. Recognizing the fossil as a tusk, Templeton alerted state scientists and the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science.

“It didn’t occur to me it could be a mammoth tusk instead of a mastodon tusk until later. When I learned it was a mammoth and not a mastodon, I got even more excited,” Templeton tells the Clarion Ledger’s Brian Broom. “I always hoped to find a part of a mammoth, but that’s pretty rare down here.”

During the last ice age, three types of Proboscideans—a group including elephants and their extinct relatives—roamed Mississippi. These were the mastodon, the gomphothere and the Columbian mammoth. While each of these creatures sported tusks, mastodons were the most common in the region, because they could forage and live in various environments. Mammoths tended to be rarer, because they mostly inhabited open grasslands and prairies.

Columbian mammoths were titan mammals that weighed more than ten tons and stood about 15 feet tall at the shoulder—larger than the woolly mammoth, which lived to the north. Based on fossil finds, Columbian mammoths roamed parts of North America, likely as far south as Costa Rica. They mostly munched on the grasses, leaves and flowers. Despite being the bigger mammoth species, Columbian mammoths died out about 11,000 to 13,000 years ago, while woolly mammoths outlived them by roughly 6,000 years, reports Tia Ghose for Live Science.

The giant elongated tooth found in Mississippi was strongly curved—a trait that tipped Templeton and researchers toward suspecting it belonged to a mammoth and not a mastodon, according to a statement from the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ).

Along with a team from the MDEQ, Templeton helped dig out the fossil by hand. The team then took photos of the intact tusk, placed aluminum foil around it and slathered it with burlap strips soaked in white plaster. This process encases fossils in a protective layer while they are removed and transported.

“There was kind of a sense of urgency to get it out, because once it starts drying, this process of delamination starts, and it can go downhill pretty quick,” Templeton tells ABC News’ Meredith Deliso. “From the beginning, our intention was to try to get it protected, out of the creek and to a better environment to protect it.”

When fossil hunters find tusks in Mississippi, they are typically just fragments of their former splendor, per the MDEQ. Exposure to air and heat over time dries up the prehistoric fossils, making them prone to fractures and disintegration. But in this case, the tusk had been fortuitously preserved by a flooding event that covered the tooth in a mix of clay, sand and gravel from the flowing waters, likely just after the animal died.

The team transported the fossil to the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science. There, paleontologist George Phillips confirmed it belonged to a mammoth. At the museum, the fossil will be studied and preserved.

Templeton is no stranger to finding rare treasures. The fossil hunter has uncovered remains from giant beavers and saber-toothed cats. But the mammoth tusk is in his top two fossil finds, according to ABC News. His favorite one is the jawbone of a mastodon that included a set of teeth.

After the Columbian mammoth fossil dries, paleontologists will treat the tusk with a chemical compound like the one used to laminate safety glass in cars. After its preservation, museum experts will be able to estimate how old the mammoth was when it died. Phillips tells ABC News the tusk could go on display temporarily as soon as the early spring of 2025.

“This is not something you see every day,” James Starnes, a geologist with MDEQ, tells the Clarion Ledger. “This takes the cake when it comes to Ice Age fossils.”

Elizabeth Gamillo | | READ MORE

Elizabeth Gamillo is a correspondent for Smithsonian and a science journalist based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She has written for Science magazine as their 2018 AAAS Diverse Voices in Science Journalism Intern.