Mastodon Migrations With the Glaciers Ice Revealed in New Paper

Giant elephants have been extra various than we had appreciated, it seems.

A new study revealed Friday in Science Advances primarily based on historic mitochondrial DNA from seven mastodons on the far edges of their identified ranges reveals three predominant issues:

One is that there wasn’t only one Ice Age mastodon species in North America – there have been two: the acquainted Mammut americanum and, as of 2019, Mammut pacificus! This variety had lengthy been suspected paleontologically, however now it is confirmed genetically. Or possibly there have been three. Mastodon of Mexico, who precisely have been you?

Two is that the 2 mastodon species, americanus and pacificus, had overlapping ranges and sure interbred, in response to Emil Karpinski, Sina Baleka, Andrew Boehm, Tim Fedak, Chris Widga and Hendrik Poinar from McMaster University and Harvard.

Three is that mastodons migrated with the motion of glaciers in America. When the ice retreated, they went north. When the ice superior, northern mastodons died out or went south – their vary prolonged so far as Honduras.

What truly is the distinction between mastodons and mammoths? Why are mastodons referred to as Mammut in Latin? And why truly would big pachyderms roam with the ice?

Elephants harrumph, monkeys triumph

Mastodons had flatter heads than the dome-skulled mammoths, and have been smaller and stockier. Mammoths had bulbous heads, have been taller and comparatively extra gracile. Mammoths have been grazers and mastodons ate leaves and twigs of shrubs and swampland vegetation, as their tooth clearly present. So, they may exploit completely different environments.

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As for the nomenclature, no, it is not that early paleontologists have been hopelessly confused.

“The root of Mammut is the same as Mammal, and means ‘breast-tooth,’ researcher Chris Widga helpfully explained in an email to Haaretz. “It refers back to the form of the cusps on the crown. Yes, it’s oddly much like the origins of Mammoth (or Mammut in German).”

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In any case, each at the moment are gone, and extra not too long ago than you’d assume.

Mastodons clung on until about 10,000 years ago and the last mammoth passed away on Wrangel Island in Siberia just as ancient Egypt was rising. Today, elephants still hang on in parts of Africa and Asia – and they’re shrimps compared with some of their extinct cousins, the mammoths.

Proboscideans were a raving success as clades go, originating from small pig-like animals in Africa. “The earliest proboscidean is Eritherium, which lived about 60 million years in the past in what’s now Morocco,” Widga says. Eritherium was only about 20 centimeters tall and looked like the love child of a pig and a hippo but had the hallmark dentition of the clade.

Next up was Moeritherium in North and West Africa, which had an early trunk and rose to 70 centimeters in height. They were getting bigger. And diversifying. Paleontologists have identified at least three Moeritherium species.

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The first proboscideans to leave Africa were the Deinotheres, about 20 million years ago. They had no upper tusks but did have chin tusks curving down towards the ground. And by 25 million years ago, the mastodon and mammoth lineages had already split – back in Africa – and would eventually migrate, too.

We don’t yet know who the common ancestor of mammoths and mastodons was (just like we don’t know which hominin lineage produced Homo sapiens.) “The frequent ancestor modifications between completely different analyses, but it surely was in all probability one thing like Phiomia, a small (~130 cm at shoulder) elephant-like animal,” Widga notes.

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Mastodons arose in Africa but didn’t reach their final forms until migrating through Eurasia to the Americas via the Bering land bridge about 16 or 17 million years ago. Thus, americanum and pacificus are found only in North and Central America.

Mammoths also continued to evolve in Africa and spread to Eurasia about 3 million years ago. They too crossed Beringia to the Americas about 1.5 million years ago.

“Three teams of proboscideans made it to North America: Gomphotheres, Mastodons and Mammoths,” summarizes Widga.

But Emil Karpinski, Widga et al. did not focus on gomphotheres or mammoths – just mastodons. The point is that all sorts of elephant types arose in Africa and spread to Eurasia, time and again – much like early humans. The main difference? One involved pachyderms, the other, clever monkeys – and they did it first.

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Hola, quién eres?

The study analyzed mitochondrial DNA from seven mastodons: six Mammut americanum from Nova Scotia and the U.S. East Coast, and one Mammut pacificus from Tualatin, Oregon.

As for the Mexican mastodon, his mitochondria were not part of this study. He might be a very alternative americanum, a pacificus or maybe an unknown species. According to Karpinski, he’s highly diverged. More testing of similar specimens is needed but at present, the indication is that there may have been more mastodon species than we realized.

We’re sending rockets to outer space (never mind that a lot seem to blow up). We can see individual atoms! So why is it still unclear whether there were one, two or three mastodon species in North America?

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Because distinguishing between distinct species is not as trivial as one might think. Giraffes – which are huge, unmissable in the landscape, regardless of how well they camouflage in forested environments only had their true diversity recognized in a study published in August 2025, when scientists determined there are four giraffe species in Africa, not three.

So spare a thought for paleontologists categorizing extinct animals based only on fossil bones, especially when colleagues can’t even agree on which animal they came from. But in recent years, techniques to extract and analyze ancient DNA have changed the game – not only in studying human and giraffe evolution, but also on the great elephant migrations across the Americas.

Elephant for dinner

So mastodons spread all over North America, glaciation permitting, from Alaska and Canada as far south as Honduras. Their specific range at any given time depended on the climate. In any case, they had at least some geographical overlap, and may also have interbred, just as Homo sapiens did with Neanderthals and Denisovans. And apparently other hominins as well – it’s all about opportunity, isn’t it?

Speaking of, a relatively new theory of human evolution from Ran Barkai and his team from the Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Cultures at Tel Aviv University ties human evolution to the elephant. Long and bloody story short: about 2 million years ago, our ancestors became intensely carnivorous and targeted the biggest animals, which had the thickest layers of fat. Humans can’t have more than 35% to 50% of their nutrition based on protein alone without getting nitrogen poisoning. So we evolved to crave fat (admit it – nobody dreams of roasting carrots over the open fire.)

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As hominins exited Africa, they hunted megafauna – especially elephants – everywhere they went – across Africa, the Levant, Eurasia and eventually, the Americas.

In previous work the team detected evidence for at least two phases of migration into the extreme north (Beringia), Alaska and Canada, when glaciers were melting. Now, according to Karpinski, the mitochondrial DNA of the six americanus they tested indicate three or possibly four migrations on the east coast.

Bottom line: Elephants affected our evolution and we affected their extirpation, but the degree to which we affected the final mastodon extinction remains unknown. Still, there are clues.

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“Gomphotheres and Mastodons each arrived across the identical time, 17 million years in the past. Mammoths arrived a lot later, about 1.5 million years in the past,” Widga sums up. “Both mastodons and mammoths have been quite common on the finish of the Pleistocene and overlap with people. Gomphotheres have been additionally nonetheless round at the moment, however appear to be a lot rarer in North America… Although there are solely a handful of web sites, human instruments have been discovered with all three teams.”

Oh pricey. That whiff of human culpability once more.

But let’s be honest: mastodons have been already branching out lengthy earlier than Homo sapiens confirmed up, as Karpinski factors out. Most species have been extinct earlier than we even started to evolve.