Has it ever occurred to you ?

Southland Times, Issue 21101, 5 June 1930, Page 6

Has it ever occurred to you ?

What is a Mastodon? Although, at the dawn of the Old Stone Age, many of the giant mammals died out, man still encountered, in his -daily walks abroad, a vast number of fierce animals that had survived the rigours of the first glacial epoch when a great part of Europe was covered by mighty glaciers and ice sheets. The rivers swarmed with rhinoceroses and hippopotami; in the forests the mammoth, most famous of all the prehistoric animals, roamed in company with the mastodon and the woolly rhinoceros; and savage cat-like creatures crept up the trees for safety. The mastodon was a forerunner of the modern elephant, which it resembled in many ways. The mastodon, however, was larger. Remains of this animal have been found in many parts of the world, including China, North America and Europe. It seems to have lived in the forest and derived its chief source of food from the trees. The .mastodon certainly never enjoyed the more congenial surroundings of the Zoo —where its descendants have acquired a taste for buns! There is no indication of the exact period when this animal became extinct, but it is most likely that it perished during one or other of the subsequent ice-ages which must have killed off many other animals which were not able to withstand extreme cold.