Rare Ice Age mastodon tooth discovered in Bay Area creek

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Set us as preferred Amid an oppressive stretch of extreme heat and Florida-esque humidity that has been punishing much of California, consider, for a moment, the Ice Age.For millions of years, Pacific mastodons — huge, hairy relatives of modern elephants — roamed a vast and lush range that included California, Oregon, the northern Rocky Mountains and parts of Mexico.They’re all gone now, long extinct just like the saber-toothed cats and dire wolves that walked the earth with them.But around 10,000 years ago, one of those Pacific mastodons left behind a big tooth that was recently discovered in a Bay Area creek — a find that has thrilled scientists, who say it will provide important clues about a distinct species of mastodon that has only been officially recognized since 2019.

The Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District, a public agency known as Midpen that has preserved more than 70,000 acres of open space in the Bay Area, announced this week that a scientist recently discovered a remarkably preserved adult molar in a San Mateo County creek bed.Brigid Lynch, a geomorphologist with the hydrology consulting firm Balance Hydrologics, was doing field surveys for a habitat enhancement project supporting the threatened California red-legged frog when she found what appeared to be an oddly shaped rock, according to a Midpen news release.“As a geologist, I’ve gone out and seen stuff in the field, but definitely nothing as exciting as this,” Lynch said in a statement.The agency did not say when the tooth was found or which creek it came from.

A spokesperson could not immediately be reached for comment.The fossilized tooth is believed to be at least 10,000 years old.“It’s the most complete mastodon molar from our area, and the most spectacular mastodon molar that I’ve ever seen,” Wayne Thompson, a paleontologist...