Mastodon?

November 17, 2022 by joachim

I lived in Albany, New York for many years. Countless years. Deep time can be appreciated by living there.

Once in a while during that time I went to Cohoes, across the Hudson river and a few miles north on I-787, to see the Cohoes Mastodon. Deep time? Here we are talking 13,000 years. Wiki says about that

“In life, the Cohoes Mastodon stood about eight and one-half feet high at the shoulder, was about fifteen feet long, and weighed between 8,000 and 10,000 pounds. The shape and large size of the bones indicate that the animal was male. We know from carbon dating that the mastodon lived about 13,000 years ago, and based on growth rings in his tusks, he died relatively young at the age of 32 (mastodon life expectancy was approximately 50 years).”

Birds descended from dinosaurs, which disappeared when the big asteroid struck an area close to the gulf in Mexico. Today there are 11,700 species of birds, an impressive legacy as descendants of animals that weighted tons and shook the earth just by taking a leisurely walk.

The Mastodon was a similarly massive animal, but it left no descendants inventing wings and flying or sailing through the air. Its utterances we can only guess by listening to those of members of some distantly related species: elephants and buffalos.