[MSN] Mammoth bones found, reburied.

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Mammoth bones found, reburied

By BILL TEETER
Star-Telegram Staff Writer

Mammoth bones were found at an undisclosed location at Lake Grapevine. 

Photo is courtesy of the City of Grapevine.
More photos
http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/local/16197971.htm

GRAPEVINE - These bones won't talk - at least not until they're unearthed
again.

Still smarting over the theft of dinosaur footprints this spring, the Army
Corps of Engineers and the city of Grapevine have reburied parts of a
Columbian mammoth that were found along the receding shore line.

Visitors came across a jawbone and part of a tusk, and there may be more
bones in the area, but there are no plans to study the location that is
somewhere on 1,200 acres of Corps property under lease to the city, said
Dale King, a conservation specialist with the corps. The find was reburied
to protect it for the time being.

The bones were discovered in April, but it wasn't until last month that the
find was revealed.

Last spring some dinosaur tracks also were revealed by dropping lake levels.
Two of them were stolen soon after their location became known to the
public, so neither the city nor the Corps will divulge the location of the
latest find out of concern they could be taken, said Doug Evans, Grapevine
Parks and Recreation director.

The site is normally covered by water, said Dan McGregor, an archeologist
with the Army Corps of Engineers. But two years into a drought, receding
lake levels are uncovering archeological sites in area lakes and rivers,
McGregor said.

The Corps would like to excavate such sites, but must often just keep them
covered until funding can be found, he said. The Corps would like to
excavate such sites, but must often just keep them covered until funding can
be found, he said.

North Texas was once populated by the Columbian mammoth, said Pamela Owen,
senior paleontology educator at the Texas Natural Science Center in Austin.
Mammoths and a similar animal present in smaller numbers, mastodons, died
out about 10,000 years ago, Owen said. The Columbian mammoth, which stood
10-12 feet high at the shoulder, is thought to have had much less hair than
the woolly mammoth commonly depicted in illustrations, she said.

Mammoth finds are common in Texas, said Ron Tykoski, a vertebrate
paleontologist with the Museum of of Nature and Science in Dallas. Common
theories about why the animals died off are either hunting by humans, rapid
climate change, or a combination of both, Tykoski said.

Bill Teeter, 817-685-3801 

bteeter at star-telegram.com 

Mammoths 
Species: Columbian mammoths and woolly mammoths. They looked similar to
modern-day elephants. 

Lived: Mammoths migrated from Asia into North America about 2 million years
ago. Became extinct about 10,000 years ago. 

Range: North America, south of the ice sheets. Columbian mammoths common in
Texas and less hairy. Woolly mammoths lived near the ice sheets in the
northern end of the continent. A similar animal called a mastodon also lived
in Texas. 

Food: Mostly grass but also leaves 

Height: 12 feet at the shoulders 

Weight: 10,000 lbs 

Sources: prehistory.com and Texas Natural Science Center in Austin

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