Mastodont (Noun)
Meaning
Extinct elephant-like mammal that flourished worldwide from Miocene through Pleistocene times; differ from mammoths in the form of the molar teeth.
Classification
Nouns denoting animals.
Examples
- Mastodont fossils are found in geological deposits of North and Central America, in Africa and Eurasia.
- The American mastodont was a larger cousin of the South American mastodont species that went extinct.
- Scientists learned about mastodont social behavior through remains of a herd found in an African burial site.
- Studies of mastodont teeth structure helped to identify it as a distant relative of mammoths.
- Until the 20th century many believed mastodonts all belonged to species that evolved into mammoths but DNA testing shows differences.