Pygmy Mammoth Returns to Rest Its Bones Close to Home

The bones are back.

Almost two years after scientists discovered the nearly complete skeleton of a pygmy mammoth on an island off the Ventura County coast, the skeletal remains have returned to a local museum.

Larry Agenbroad, America’s leading mammoth expert, personally delivered the bones Tuesday to the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History. There was no question that he would be the pygmy mammoth’s chauffeur on the three-day drive from a mammoth research center in South Dakota, where the skeleton was carefully cleaned and infused with preservatives.

“I felt very responsible,” Agenbroad said, gently cradling the animal’s skull. “It is the only one in the world and I didn’t want it to get damaged.”

A team specialists spent 20 months on the tedious task of chiseling the skeleton from its concrete-hard bed of sand and calcium carbonate that formed since the animal died on Santa Rosa Island about 12,800 years ago.

Although Agenbroad and other scientists have discovered other pygmy mammoth bones, the skeleton is the best find yet of the pony-sized creatures that roamed the Channel Islands during the last Ice Age.

Scientists theorize that the much larger mainland mammoths--ancestors of the modern-day elephant--swam across the channel during the Pleistocene Epoch and their descendants slowly shrank in size while confined to the island.

After months of laborious chiseling, experts agreed it was best to leave the backbone and rib cage cemented together by calcium carbonate.

To do otherwise would risk fracturing or pulverizing the brittle vertebrae, said Don Morris, staff archeologist at Channel Islands National Park. “We also thought it would be a shame to disturb this unique configuration.”

As a result, this pygmy mammoth will never again stand erect. It will remain as it did upon discovery: on its left side with one leg extended.

The actual bones will not be available for public viewing. The museum will keep the skeleton in a climate-controlled research room with about 95% of all pygmy mammoth bones collected from the Channel Islands.

For the public, the museum is scheduled to unveil a fiberglass replica of the skeleton at a Mammoth Celebration Day on May 19. The model, made from molds of the bones, will be the centerpiece of a newly expanded pygmy mammoth exhibit sponsored by the Northern Trust Bank of California.

A second replica, lying in the same death pose, will go on display late this summer at the visitors center at the Channel Islands National Park headquarters in Ventura.

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The park’s chief interpreter, Carol Spears, said the pygmy mammoth replica will be an exhibit that can roam the mainland.

“We will be able to put the mammoth in chunks in the van and take it around to schools where it can be reassembled,” she said. “We will use it to teach kids about paleontology and methods of field research.”

Meanwhile, Agenbroad and Morris continue to scour Santa Rosa, San Miguel and Santa Cruz islands for more fossils. The duo spend at least eight days a month on the islands and have unearthed more than 100 bones. Each one adds another page to the story about the life and times of the pygmy mammoth, the animal with the oxymoronic name.

The most fertile hunting ground has been the quickly eroding cliffs and arroyos on the north shore of Santa Rosa, where the skeleton was found.

“New material is always being exposed,” Morris said. “We need to stay sharp and keep a continuous watch on the island or the material will wash away.”

Yet nothing has turned up as spectacular as the skeleton that was haphazardly spotted by a geologist visiting the island two summers ago.

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Agenbroad believes the pygmy mammoth was a male that died at age 49 and was quickly buried under a sand dune before condors or other scavengers could scatter the bones. The skeleton remains 95% complete, right down to the arthritic spurs on the bones of its feet.

During the skeleton’s cleaning, researchers found breastbones cemented in place by the sand and even two tiny bones inside the skull that support the tongue.

“It’s remarkable how the bones were held in position by hide or sinew until covered by sand,” Agenbroad said. “From a mammoth hunter’s perspective, this is tremendously exciting.”