Well-Preserved Pacific Mastodon Tooth Discovered in California Creek
A well-preserved tooth from a Pacific mastodon, an extinct elephant-like species, was discovered in a wooded creek in a mountainous area of the San Francisco Bay Area, California. Brigid Lynch, a geomorphologist at Balance Hydrologics, found the 9-inch-long fossilized tooth while working on a habitat restoration project for the threatened California red-legged frog. The discovery was made in a Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District preserve in San Mateo County. The public land management agency, which preserves over 70,000 acres in the Santa Cruz Mountains region, announced the find and has since donated the fossil to Stanford University's Doerr School of Sustainability. Chrissy Garcia, curator and manager of the Doerr School of Sustainability's specimen collections, noted the tooth's excellent condition, including both the crown and root, and even visible root canal.
