Moon dance with the sun
Day to night--return again
Quick heavenly act.
Breeze across the lake
Frenzied whitecaps whip the shore
Cooling air is felt.
Non-natives block my
Horizon. Thoughtless movement
Of 'non-belongers.'
Brilliant feathers
Flying away through sunlight
Eyes are now relieved.
I collect fossils
And love all bones, tusks, and skulls
To touch them is life.
Mammoths ate grass stems
Molars are shaped like a cow's
Chewed sideways to grind.
Mastodons ate trees
Lived in forests, not the plains
Powerful bodies.
Teeth form back to front
Constant repair from the wear
Old ones just drop out.
Fossil evidence
African mammoths evolved
During Miocene.
Later to Europe
Asia, North USA
And then Canada.
North America
Across by Beringia
Middle Pliocene.
Extinct Mammuthus
Gave rise to the large mammoths
Last, four thousand years.
Smaller Steppe Mammoth
Coexisted with Wolly
Found in the fossils.
Modern elephants
And mammoths same family
Elephantidae.
Really just cousins
Elephants did not come from
The early mammoths.
Split into three stems
African and Asian
Then the mammoth line.
Closest relatives
Asian and mammoth lines
Both lived a long time.
Mammoth had sloping
Back. Asian one's was arched
Hair versus hairless.
Out of Africa
Many species of mammoth
All were elephants.
Many were browsers
Steppe mammoths ate mostly grass
Large tooth difference.