Mastodon Is Readied for Third Incarnation

His old bones are laid out: ribs as long as a person’s arm span, tusks like tree branches and soda can-sized toes.

Eons after he roamed the piney wilderness of prehistoric New York, skeletal remains of the Cohoes Mastodon are being patched up piece by piece. Femur cracks are filled, urethane is cast to replace missing joints. One tiny bone chip is analyzed to pinpoint his age.

His kind is extinct. But modern science will allow his 9-foot-high skeleton to reign over the New York State Museum in a replication of his old world.

“He’s going to be a star!” said Jola Cope-Nydegger, as she repaired bones at a state warehouse.

It will be a third act for the Cohoes Mastodon.

The first came thousands of years ago when he was a 5-ton male who met with an early, mysterious death. The second started in September 1866, when his lower jaw and foot bones were found in a construction pit. Named for the city where he was discovered, his skeleton was displayed at the state museum in nearby Albany. But when the museum moved to newer quarters two decades ago, the 273-bone skeleton was deemed too large and fragile for the trip.

“He was put on metal shelves, and he’s been here for 20 years,” said Gay Malin, who is supervising the skeleton’s rehabilitation.

Museum officials who have long wanted to resurrect the mastodon have scraped together funds only recently. Now, there are other problems.

Bones are cracked or scarred from century-old screw holes. Each one must be gone over by Malin and her assistant, Cope-Nydegger.

“It’s sort of mind-boggling to touch something that walked 12,000 years ago,” Cope-Nydegger said. “You get these vibes.”

Since many of the bones are missing, Malin must make molds for urethane replacement parts. Plaster bones made last century are too heavy for the wiry braces that will hold the mastodon together, she said.

To ensure that it’s put together correctly, scientists will apply the latest knowledge of vertebrate paleontology; even an expert of mastodon osteology will be involved, Malin said.

The process is so involved it could take until late 1997 before the pieced-together skeleton is displayed. Just as complex will be piecing together the world where the mastodon lived.

Parts of New York state were covered by an ice sheet as recently as 10,000 years ago. The ice slowly retreated north, but low-lying areas of present-day New York remained under water as glaciers melted.

Pinning down an age for the mastodon could determine whether he spent his days in an icy wilderness or more temperate conditions.

Researchers hope the answer to that question lies in a tiny square of bone carefully cut from a femur. The fragment is at a University of Colorado laboratory, where its carbon 14 atoms will be counted in an effort to determine the animal’s age.

“It will allow us to put the mastodon in the right kind of environment,” said Dr. Norton Miller, principal biologist for the museum.

Unlike mammoths, similar elephant-like animals that roamed ancient North America, mastodons preferred forests to open fields. The Cohoes Mastodon, which resembled a furry elephant, likely spent his days munching on jack pines or white spruces. In fact, bits of larch twigs were found sticking to his molars when his bones were discovered.

His bones were found in two giant pan-shaped rock recesses geologists call potholes. The potholes were likely formed by ice floes older than the Mohawk River, which still flows through Cohoes.

Some early finders of mastodon remains thought they had stumbled upon graves of giants, since mastodon teeth are coated with enamel like human teeth. Their oddly shaped plant-grinding teeth give mastodons their literal identity: “Masto” being Greek for nipple and “odont” for tooth.

One unanswerable question is whether the Cohoes Mastodon ever saw a human being. Ancestors of American Indians arrived in New York some 11,500 years ago, roughly when the Cohoes Mastodon was thought to have lived.

One theory holds that hunting by Indians caused or helped the mysterious extinction of mastodons about 10,000 years ago. Ancient spear tips have been found around some mastodon dig sites, said George Hamell, an exhibit planner.

Another theory contends that the mastodons were unable to survive a global warming trend, said Russell Graham, an expert on mastodons who is curator of the Illinois State Museum.