Notiomastodon Notiomastodon Notiomastodon is an extinct proboscidean genus of gomphothere (a distant relative to modern Elephants) endemic to South America from the Pleistocene to the Holocene living for approximately . Proboscideans in South America were first described by Georges Cuvier in 1806 but he failed to give them specific names beyond "Mastodon". It was Fischer in 1814 who gave the “"mastodonte des cordillères"” specimen the first specific name ""Mastotherium hyodon"". In 1824, Cuvier gave the specific names of ""Mastodon andium"" to the ""mastodonte des cordillères"" specimen, and ""Mastodon humboldtii"" to the ""mastodonte humboldien"". Due to the Principle of Priority, this means
Mastodon and expanded to relatively large numbers 13,000 years ago, and their hunting may have caused a gradual attrition of the mastodon population. Analysis of tusks of mastodons from the American Great Lakes region over a span of several thousand years prior to their extinction in the area shows a trend of declining age at maturation; this is contrary to what one would expect if they were experiencing stresses from an unfavorable environment, but is consistent with a reduction in intraspecific competition that would result from a population being reduced by human hunting. Mastodon Mastodons (Greek: μαστός "breast" and ὀδούς, "tooth")