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Mastodon
Mastodons (Greek: μαστός "breast" and ὀδούς, "tooth") are any species of extinct proboscideans in the genus ''Mammut'', distantly related to elephants, that inhabited North and Central America during the late Miocene or late Pliocene up to their extinction at the end of the Pleistocene 10,000 to 11,000 years ago. Mastodons lived in herds and were predominantly forest dwelling animals that fed on a mixed diet of browsing and grazing with a seasonal preference for browsing, in contrast to living elephants that are mostly grazing animals.
''M. americanum'', the American mastodon, is the youngest and best-known species of the genus. They disappeared from North America as part of a mass extinction of most of the Pleistocene megafauna, widely presumed to have been related to overexploitation by Clovis hunters, and possibly also to climate change.
==Description==
Modern reconstructions based on partial and skeletal remains reveal that mastodons were very similar in appearance to elephants and, to a lesser degree, mammoths, though not closely related to either one. Compared to mammoths, mastodons had shorter legs, a longer body and were more heavily muscled, a build similar to that of the current Asian elephants. The average body size of the species ''M. americanum'' was around in height at the shoulders, corresponding to a large female or a small male, but large males could grow up to in height and weigh as much as . However, the 35-year-old specimen AMNH 9950 could grow tall and weight , and another male grew tall and weighed . Another species, ''M. borsoni'', is known from 30–40-year-old males that could grow tall and weighting . Like modern elephants, the females were smaller than the males. They had a low and long skull with long curved tusks,〔 with those of the males being more massive and more strongly curved.〔 Mastodons had cusp-shaped teeth, very different from mammoth and elephant teeth (which have a series of enamel plates), well-suited for chewing leaves and branches of trees and shrubs.〔
抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』
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