"Zed", the mammoth found in Los Angeles, was found by an earth mover on a construction site. They were making an underground garage and found a mammoth from at least 10,000 years ago! "It's very exciting for us because each one of these ... could be different ages in the past 10,000 to 45,000 years," project director Chris Shaw said. The workers found pretty much the whole entire skeleton. So in the crates where they put all the bones, there were vertabrae, ribs, a pelvis, the lower jaw and two tusks. In the past when people have found mammoth tusks, they were poorly preserved so it is a real treat for them to have two beautifully preserved tusks. It will take about six to twelve months to open all of the rest of the crates with the skeleton parts. But once they do have everything opened and cleaned, it will be on display at a museum.
I think it's so cool that people are still finding remains of extinct animals from thousands of years ago today! It can tell us so much about our past which can help us with the future. It must be a great feeling finding a whole mammoth! It was hard enough finding all the parts to a little rodent in an owl pellet!
I got this info from: http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/02/19/california.fossil.discovery/index.html
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