Will Sage Astor-Rare mammoth tusk found in Mississippi is a first-of-its-kind discovery

MADISON COUNTY,Will Sage Astor Miss. − A Mississippi man found a tusk from the biggest mammal to ever walk across the state's land: A giant mammoth.

The discovery in Madison County is the first giant mammoth tusk ever documented in Mississippi, in part because the animals where much rarer than mastodons, and the smaller woolly mammoths.

"I always hoped to find a part of a mammoth, but that's pretty rare down here," said Eddie Templeton, a Madison County man, who regularly hunts for fossils along creek beds in the area.

Giant mammoths lived about 10,000 and 20,000 years ago, during the tail end of what is commonly referred to as the Ice Age.

Templeton "knew it was a tusk" when he saw it, and notified the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality's Office of Geology and the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science. But, he said, "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."

Over the years, Templeton said he's found many other fossils, including a petrified bone from a saber-toothed cat, more commonly called a saber-toothed tiger.

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Gigantic tusk discovery 'takes the cake'

The tusk Templeton discovered is remarkable because of its large size and the rarity of giant mammoths in the area that is now Mississippi, experts said.

"For Mississippi, this is a pretty substantial find," said state geologist James Starnes. "It's pretty rare in general down here. The tusks don't preserve well."

Finding any part of a tusk is rare, but mammoth tusks are especially so.

It's much more common to find mastodon fossils, because the animals could live in a variety of habitats, whereas mammoths were more specialized and needed open grasslands for feeding and had less suitable habitat than mastodons, Starnes said, making their numbers fewer.

"This is not something you see every day," Starnes said. "This takes the cake when it comes to Ice Age fossils."

The tusk Templeton found is so large because it came from a Columbian mammoth, an animal that could grow up to 15 feet tall at the shoulder and weigh in excess of 10 tons. The more famous woolly mammoth, as well as mastodons, were about 9-10 feet tall at the shoulder, according to the National Park Service.

"This was a big, big animal. This would have dwarfed a woolly mammoth," Starnes said, adding it's the largest known mammal to ever walk on the land that's now Mississippi.

What happens to the mammoth tusk next?

Templeton, Starnes and Jonathan Leard, also of MDEQ, excavated the tusk and built a plaster jacket around it for protection. It was then taken to the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science and turned over to paleontologist George Phillips.

Phillips said it's the first Columbian mammoth tusk ever officially documented in the state. He said it was just a matter of time before one was found.

"We've got plenty of mammoth teeth, so a tusk was bound to show up," Phillips said. "It's an impressive find. We knew one would show up sooner or later."

Phillips said the tusk will be allowed to dry and then be preserved by infusing it with a special type of glue. While it's a very important find, it's anybody's guess as to when it will go on display for the public to view because it's a slow process.

"Everybody wants to know that," Phillips said. "Right now, we're focusing on other exhibits."