'Mammut borsoni' mastodon identified

The fossilized tusk of a newborn mastodon of the species Mammut borsoni has been identified by a scientist working with the Museum of Natural History at Milia, Grevena. Announcing the find on Tuesday, the scientist said that this was the first discovery of such a unique fossil from such a young mastodon, which must have died about two months after its birth. The find is expected to shed new light on the study concerning the development and way of life of mastodons, which lived in the Grevena area about three million years ago. It has been put on display at the museum next to the largest tusks in the world measuring 4.39 meters and 5.02 meters, found in 1997 and 2007, respectively.

In 2009 a fossil mastodon tusk found in Grevena two years earlier was officially was entered into the Guinness Book of Records as the largest ever found.

The tusk is truly mammoth at 5.02 metres in length, dates back three million years and belongs to the extinct mastodon species Mammut borsoni. The previous record for the world's largest tusk was also held by a tusk found in the Grevena region in 1997, with a length of 4.39 metres.

The tusks and other paleontological finds discovered in a local dig are on display at the Milias Natural History Museum.

Also, on display at the Museum of Mammoths that opened in 2009 in the district of Oreokastro in Thessaloniki, is a reconstructed mammoth from 9-million-year-old fossilized bones, tusks and skull combined with artificial parts.

The museum is the only one in the entire Balkan region that has on display fossilized remains of mammoths, the gigantic animals that lived in the Ice Age.

A Dinosaurs' Park was also inaugurated in Oreokastro a few years ago.(AMNA)