Thanks nickcarraway. Look for a trail of very large discarded floss.
Posted on 05/30/2023 10:49:07 AM PDT by nickcarraway
Paleontologists are busy this Memorial Day weekend trying to find a tooth in Santa Cruz County that dates back to the Ice Ages.
An unknown beach-goer picked up a giant mastodon tooth that first surfaced on an Aptos beach Friday. Now scientists are hoping that the scientifically significant tooth will be returned to the Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History where it can be studied and displayed for the public as a piece of ancient history.
US Census breakdown: The largest racial group in each Bay Area county The 1-foot-long tooth was originally spotted by a beach-goer strolling through the sand near Aptos Creek on Rio Del Mar Beach. “She didn’t know what it was, the importance of it. It looks like a piece of old firewood. So she left it there. It’s understandable,” said Wayne Thompson, a paleontology collections advisor for the Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History.
The woman was curious enough to snap several closeup photographs of the strange object in the sand, post them on Facebook, and ask if anyone knew what it could be.
“People said ‘woah that looks like a giant tooth.’ I practically hit the floor. It was a mastodon tooth, right in the same area where we know mastodons lived in Santa Cruz County,” Thompson said. The tooth once belonged to an extinct Pacific Mastodon.
Thompson contacted the woman on Saturday and she dashed back to the beach to look for it. “It wasn’t there. It’s MIA right now,” Thompson told KRON4 on Monday.
Many people visited Rio Del Mar beach for the holiday weekend, and a second beach-goer likely took the tooth, Thompson said. High tide was not high enough Friday night for ocean waves to carry the object away. Searches on Sunday didn’t turn up anything buried in the sand, either.
The tooth was up “so high on the beach in the dry sand the only option is somebody took it. They might not know what it is, and think it’s an old piece of petrified wood,” Thompson said.
Jennifer Schuh took photographs of a mastodon tooth on May 26, 2023 at Rio Del Mar beach. (Image courtesy Jennifer Schuh) The first mastodon ever discovered in Santa Cruz County was found more than 40 years ago in Aptos Creek, just upstream from the tooth. In 1980, Jim Stanton was only 16 years old when he found a juvenile mastodon skull in the creek. The skull was determined to be a specimen of a Pacific Mastodon.
After paleontologists excavated the skull, it took Thompson two years to meticulously put the skull back together at the museum. The skull is currently on permanent exhibit at the Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History.
The most recently-discovered mastodon tooth was from an adult — not a juvenile — giving local scientists their first evidence that a herd of mastodon likely roamed through this area during the Ice Ages.
Jennifer Schuh took photographs of a mastodon tooth on May 26, 2023, at Rio Del Mar beach. (Image courtesy Jennifer Schuh) “The skull found 40 years ago had sutures in the bones which were not completely fused, meaning that it was a juvenile. The tooth that was found at the mouth of Aptos Creek was significantly worn and was from an older adult probably in their 30s or 40s,” Thompson said.
Paleontologists are hoping that whoever has the tooth will turn the ancient object in to the museum. Thompson emphasized, “It’s super, super, super important for understanding elephant life in Santa Cruz County during the last Ice Age. There are only a few mammoth specimens, and mammoths are more common than mastodons. Aptos was a popular destination for Ice Age proboscideans,” he told KRON4. “It’s a piece of Santa Cruz history.”
Based on carbon 14 testing, scientists with Harvard University estimate that Santa Cruz County’s mastodons were among the last before the species Mammut pacificus went extinct about 5,000 years ago.
My dental plan is so bad, I am only eligible for really old bridgework.
There’s an elephant in her living room
"Returned" implies that they owned it in the first place - kind of like police "buy-back" programs. How arrogant!
Whoever came along and found the thing and took it home, ought to sell it to the Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History. The museum could offer a reward.
After posting it on Facebook, it’s not a surprise it wasn’t there when she returned.
Also how could the museum have the tooth “ returned” to them if they never had it in the first place.
They want the tooth, the whole tooth and nothing but the tooth......................
Thanks nickcarraway. Look for a trail of very large discarded floss.
gonna make a lamp out of it! LMAO!
Ain’t that the tooth.
multiple teeth at least!!!!
that is not a piece of drift wood either
Finders keepers losers weepers bitches.
If I found that on the beach, it would be in my house that day. Pick up a plastic bag (they’re all over the place) and walk out with it like you own it, because you do.
Mastadon = nipple tooth. Their teeth are shaped differently than those of mammoth.
Excellent beach combing.
Good that someone took it home. No different than finding a seashell. And the museum types will fawn over it, catalogue it, and put it in some drawer in a non-public area storeroom, and hide it away forever.
Now someone gets to enjoy it.
You snooze, you lose.
Taking fossils home is usually theft unless you own the property. It’s certainly theft under public land use laws.
If this wasn’t theft it’s a sad loss for getting more knowledge about mastodons.
The owner could gift the tooth to a museum for a couple of years like people do with art works out of private collections. Get it dated and get DNA and what other tests can be done in that time lets everyone in on what secrets it holds.
A cousin of mine found a petrified Walrus Tusk, he never told anyone but friends. It is an awesome piece. I know of someone with a Mastodon molar also.
Where is it now?
Lost while fishing for Marlin off the coast. Shorter answer, IDK.
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