Battling mastodons

attle scars on male mastodon tusks reveal that the Ice Age giants fought in brutal combat each year during seasonal phases of heightened sexual activity and aggression, according to new findings that will be announced at this week's Society of Vertebrate Paleontology meeting in Ontario.

The discovery counters the view that now-extinct mastodons were peaceful, passive creatures that rarely engaged in battles.

It also strengthens the link between mastodon and modern elephant behavior, since male bull elephants also fight seasonal, hormonally-charged battles to show their dominance and win desired mates.

These weren't just shoving matches, either:

"For example, we have evidence of tusks stabbing into the vertebral column, penetrating the space traversed by the spinal cord, from a direction that implies the victim was already lying on his side on the ground; in other words, the violence went on, even after one animal was down," Fisher said.

Read the rest at Discovery News.

Posted by David on October 21, 2006 10:18 AM