Scientists this week excavated the skull of an extinct mammoth from Channel Islands National Park that included both of the animal’s ivory tusks and is said to be one of the best preserved fossils ever of its kind.

The skull was dug out of an eroding stream bank on Santa Rosa Island from an area where officials with the U.S. Geological Service carbon dated adjacent samples and found them to be 13,000 years old.

“This mammoth find is extremely rare and of high scientific importance. It appears to have been on the Channel Islands at the nearly same time as humans,” said paleontologist Justin Wilkins.

The samples date back to the time of the Arlington Springs Man, the oldest human skeletal remains ever found in North America which were also discovered on Santa Rosa Island.


Paleontologists believe that ancestors of the animal, which were known to be as tall as 14 feet, migrated to the Channel Islands during the past two ice ages when the land mass of the islands were closer to the coast and sea levels were lower.

The skull, which is an unusual size, is of particular interest to scientists because they have not yet determined what species it was from. It could be from a Columbian mammoth, which roamed the earth one million years ago, or it could be a descendant of the species that had downsized over time to pygmy form. Or possibly, it could be something in between, experts said.

Its tusk’s are intriguing scientists as well. One is almost five-feet long and is coiled like that of an older mammal, while the other is shorter and sloped to the left, which is a characteristic of a younger one.

Once the enamel on the animal’s fossilized teeth is analyzed, scientists should be able to determine its exact species, as well as how old it was when it died.


The skull will be covered with burlap and plaster and taken via helicopter to the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History where it will be preserved and cleaned and will be place on display in the future.

Scientist named the skull “Larry,” after Peter Larramendy who is the National Park Service biologist who first spotted the mammoth’s ivory tusk sticking out of the ground and Larry Agenbroad, the late paleontologist who excavated a mammoth graveyard in South Dakota.

Scientists work on the site where a rare mammoth skull was found on Santa Rosa Island. (National Park Service )


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