Extinction of mammoths and mastodons detailed at SCC

WILDLIFE — If you’re into big game — including really big game — you might be interested in a free lecture this week, “Extinction of Mammoths and Mastodons near the End of the Pleistocene,” by Daniel Fisher, professor of paleontology and curator and director of the Museum of Paleontology at the University of Michigan.

The program will start at 11:30 a.m. on Friday, April 21, at Spokane Community College, LAIR Auditorium, Bldg. 6.

Mammoths and mastodons, both of which were relatives of elephants, were once widely distributed over much of the Northern Hemisphere. However, they went extinct near the end of the Pleistocene Epoch, leaving the cause of their extinction as one of the enduring mysteries of paleontology.  New insights emerging from the study of their tusks are now beginning to show what factors contributed most to their disappearance.