Island 35 Mastodon Island 35 Mastodon The Island 35 Mastodon was discovered on Island No. 35 of the Mississippi River in Tipton County, Tennessee, United States. In 1900, a Pleistocene mastodon skeleton was excavated approximately east of Reverie, Tennessee and southeast of Wilson, Arkansas. In 1957 the site was reported as destroyed. Mastodons are members of the prehistoric, extinct genus "Mammut". They resemble modern elephants. Native to North America, they are said to have lived on the North American continent from almost 4 million years ago, in the Pliocene Epoch, until their eventual disappearance about 10,000 years ago. In 1900, archaeologist James K.
Mastodon incognitum "mastodon". The name "mastodon" (or "mastodont") means "breast tooth" (Ancient Greek: μαστός "breast" and ὀδούς, "tooth"), and was assigned by the French naturalist Georges Cuvier in 1817, for the nipple-like projections on the crowns of its molars. "Mastodon" as a genus name is obsolete; the valid name is "Mammut", a name that preceded Cuvier's description, making "Mastodon" a junior synonym. The change was met with resistance, and authors sometimes applied ""Mastodon"" as an informal name; consequently it became the common term for members of the genus. Species include: Since a tentative 1977 report of "M. matthewi" in China, there