US farmer finds woolly mammoth skeleton
June 6th, 2012 - 8:59 pm ICT by IANSWashington, June 6 (IANS) A farmer in America’s Iowa state has found an entire skeleton of a wooly mammoth, a 14,000-year-old elephant-like creature from the ice age.
The man, known only as John, excavated the fossils two years ago from his backyard in Oskaloosa, the Daily Mail reported.
He has all kinds of bones cluttered around his house, and the most impressive is a five-foot-long femur.
Woolly mammoths were hairy relatives of African elephants, and were roughly the same size — up to 13 feet tall.
John and his sons kept their find a secret for two years. As the excavation site got deeper, John invited Holmes Semken, a retired professor of vertebrate paleontology from the University of Iowa.
Semken said the archaeological site gives important clues about what life was like in Iowa during the Ice Age.
- Scientists excited about mammoth discovery in Iowa - Jun 07, 2012
- Discovery of bones unravel Ice Age ecosystem - Nov 07, 2010
- Did Ice Age giants' ancestors originate in Tibet? - Sep 05, 2011
- Weaning infants late led to woolly mammoth's end? - Dec 22, 2010
- Protein from 600,000-year-old mammoth sheds light on ancient fossils - Mar 31, 2011
- Scientists getting closer to resurrect extinct animals - Jan 11, 2010
- Ancient mammals shifted diets as climate changed - Jun 03, 2009
- Ice age graveyard reveals ancient mysteries - Jan 24, 2011
- Dwindling pastures behind mammoth's extinction - Aug 22, 2010
- Remains of woolly mammoth found in Russia - May 27, 2011
- Russian, South Korean scientists vow to revive mammoth - Mar 14, 2012
- Delayed, longer weaning 'could have led to woolly mammoths' extinction' - Dec 22, 2010
- Scientists extract protein from ancient bones - Jun 06, 2011
- Woolly mammoth to be brought back to life in five years - Dec 04, 2011
- Will the Woolly mammoth be brought back to life? - Feb 05, 2011
Tags: african elephants, bones, daily mail, elephant, excavation, fossils, iowa state, relatives, skeleton, university of iowa, vertebrate paleontology, woolly mammoths