Burning Tree Mastodon

The specimen was discovered on December 12, 1989 by a Flower Excavating Company drag line operator who was digging a new pond on the Burning Tree Golf Course grounds.

The American mastodon is an extinct species of proboscidean mammal, Mammut americanum (Kerr, 1792) (Animalia, Chordata, Vertebrata, Mammalia, Proboscidea, Mammutidae).

Thick body hair on Pleistocene pachyderms was likely an evolutionary adaptation to harsh wintry climates.

Preserved stomach contents indicated a diet of moss, seeds, leaves, water lilies, and swamp grass.

Before this discovery, American mastodons were interpreted as having diets consisting principally of twigs and cones from evergreen trees.

However, still-living gut bacteria have been isolated from insects in early Cenozoic amber and viable halobacteria have been recovered from Paleozoic and even late Precambrian rock salt.