Page 8 - Other Fossils

The distinction between mastodons and mammoths has been a matter of discussion for a long time. Mastodons are often confused with being directly related to mammoths. However, they are quite different from the latter species.

If you were asked to name types of whales, what would spring to your mind? Chances are you would think of the blue whale or the humpback whale. And why not? They are some of the most popular whales in existence. The blue whale is the largest animal to ever live. A recent fossil discovery of an ancient blue whale, named Leviathan or Livyatan, has proven that these behemoths have been roaming the waters for quite a while.

Have you ever wondered why cave bears have ‘cave’ in their names? The reason is quite simple: most of their fossils have been found in caves. Brown bears of today also use caves but they use them only for hibernation purposes. Cave bears, on the other, spent a great amount of their time in caves, as per experts.

Fossils, and trilobite fossils, in particular, are rarely found in the finest state of preservation. After all, they had been buried under the rocks for more than hundreds of millions of years, exposed to movements of earth’s crust and metamorphosis. While some unpleasant geological activities completely destroyed their fossilization, others keep them preserved for years. 

For a long time, people were confused between Mastodons and Mammoths, and understandably so, because they looked quite similar. They were both huge and hairy, had a long nose and tusks. These pre-historic elephants belong to the order Proboscidea, which is a named derived from the Greek word for “nose.”