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Experts can learn a lot from tusks.
Templeton’s discovery is interesting for several reasons.
First, it’s unusual — “There aren’t that many of these animals in the fossil record,” Stearns says — and second, it’s nearly complete, even down to the tips of the tusks.
The fact that it was a fang is great news for experts too. The tusks contain information about the mammoth, for example Bones of the foot.
“By studying the tusks, we can get a sense of the entire life cycle of this animal,” Stearns said.
Each year, the mammoths built up layers in their tusks, like rings on a tree, keeping a record of where they had been and whether they had enough food.
Research into this tusk is still in its early stages, but previous work on other mammoth tusks shows how much Stearns and his colleagues have left to learn.
Earlier this year, scientists paper By analyzing only the tusks, researchers can trace the path of woolly mammoths as they migrated through Canada and Alaska 14,000 years ago.
Stearns said the tusk will be available for display at the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science’s Fossil Roadshow in March, but it will need some repairs beforehand because it broke during shipping.