A college professor and some students have discovered a rare pygmy mammoth skeleton, half-covered by a sand dune on one of the Channel Islands off the Southern California coast.
The rare creature is believed to have evolved from a giant elephant-like beast to an animal smaller than a pony."We're extremely excited," said Carol Spears, a spokeswoman for Channel Islands National Park. "This is the first known, complete pygmy mammoth skeleton ever found, anywhere. It will generate a lot of stir in the scientific community."
The pygmy mammoth is believed to be indigenous to the Channel Islands, and isolated bones have been discovered there before, Spears said. But now that a full skeleton has been unearthed, scientists can learn more about the creature's evolution, eating habits and environment, she said.
For security reasons, Spears would not reveal exactly where the skeleton was discovered. There are five Channel Islands.
The skeleton was discovered earlier last month, half-covered by a sand dune, by Thomas Rockwell, a geology professor at San Diego State University, and some of his students, Spears said.
Rockwell alerted Donald Morris, an archaeologist for the Park Service, who called Jim Mead, a paleontologist at The Mammoth Site in South Dakota - where 150,000 visitors a year watch Mead and other scientists excavate mammoth skeletons from an ancient sink hole.
Mead said he is thrilled by the find, which is 4 feet tall, 6 feet long and 11,000 to 100,000 years old.
The mammoths that were trapped in La Brea Tar Pits in what is now Los Angeles, were 10 to 12 feet tall.
"Scientists will become more and more interested in the islands," Mead said. Mead traveled to see the pygmy mammoth immediately after it was discovered, and will this month to dig it out.
He will be accompanied by Larry Agenbroad, his partner and a mammoth expert.
As Agenbroad studies the skeleton, trying to determine such things as the mammoth's age before death and cause of death, Mead will sift around the sand dune for other mammals, plants, or creatures that could provide clues as to how the mammoth lived.
Various animals evolved into pygmies after migrating to islands where they were forced to limit their eating habits, and therefore their size, Mead said.