Andrew Paul is Popular Science's staff writer covering tech news. Previously, he was a regular contributor to The A.V. Club and Input, and has had recent work featured by Rolling Stone, Fangoria, GQ, Slate, NBC, as well as McSweeney's Internet Tendency. He lives outside Indianapolis.
ArticleBody:A fossil collector recently stumbled across a major find while exploring rural Mississippi—the state’s first confirmed mammoth tusk. But finding it was only the first of many hurdles to recovering the rare specimen. Although woolly mammoths and mastodons often draw most cultural attention, the two species were far from the only elephant ancestors to roam North America. What’s more, they weren’t even the largest—that honor went to the Columbian mammoth.
The Columbian mammoth could reach 15-feet-tall at the shoulders. Credit: James Starnes / MDEQ A race against time and elements The team needed to move quickly. According to MDEQ, prolonged exposure to Mississippi’s stifling afternoon sun could easily dry out and destroy the specimen. For the rest of the day, Templeton and researchers began carefully excavating the tusk by hand, ultimately revealing a completely intact, 7-foot-long fossil.
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