Mastodon Mastodon Mastodons (Greek: μαστός "breast" and ὀδούς, "tooth") are any species of extinct proboscideans in the genus Mammut (family Mammutidae), 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 obtained by browsing and grazing with a seasonal preference for browsing, similar to living elephants. "M. americanum", the American mastodon, is the youngest and best-known species of the genus. They disappeared from
Second voyage of HMS Beagle tooth among the Punta Alta fossils. This discovery was later explained as part of the evolution of the horse. The "soft as cheese" "Mastodon" bones at the Paraná River were identified as two gigantic skeletons of "Mastodon andium", and mastodon teeth were also identified from Santa Fé and the Carcarañá River. The pieces of spine and a hind leg from Port S. Julian which Darwin had thought came from "some large animal, I fancy a Mastodon" gave Owen difficulties, as the creature which he named "Macrauchenia" appeared to be a "gigantic and most extraordinary pachyderm", allied to the "Palaeotherium", but