Rare Mammoth Skeleton Discovered in Texas

A rare, intact mammoth skeleton was discovered in Texas, providing a "huge contribution to science," according to paleontologists.

Texas man Wayne McEwen unearthed a six-foot mammoth tusk, as well as the rest of the skeleton, on his 138-acre farm in southern Ellis County in May.

Finding mammoth remains in this area is not unheard of, but it is unusual to stumble upon some as well preserved as the specimen on McEwen's farm - a nearly complete intact mammoth skeleton, lying on a bed of sand where the creature died 20,000 to 40,000 years ago.

"Usually the bones are scattered and you get the remains of maybe 30 or 40 percent of the animal. But anyone can look at this and know it's a mammoth. It looks exactly like what it is," Tom Vance, the Navarro College professor who oversaw the scientific excavation, told The Dallas Morning News.

The specimen appears to be that of a female Columbian mammoth, which lived in the region in the Late Pleistocene Epoch. Columbian mammoths were slightly larger but less hairy than the more famous woolly mammoth that roamed the northern glaciers - though this newly discovered mammoth was smaller than average, at eight or nine feet tall.

McEwen and his family were intrigued by their find and knew it was significant, deciding to donate the remains to the Perot Museum of Nature and Science in Dallas.

"We realized there was something interesting there," McEwen said. "We knew this was something nice, not something to just haul away."

Archaeologists speculate that the mammoth got stuck in sand that used to occupy this area and died, to later be covered over by silt from floodwaters.

According to The Associated Press, Tykoski is racing against the rain to fully excavate the skeleton and will spend at least a year researching the remains for clues to age, diet and perhaps cause of death.