Little Stevie’s a Wonder

While we have been fixated on far-off Mars, the folk around Hemet are getting excited about a scientific discovery right under their feet: “Little Stevie,” the fossilized remains of a mastodon that may have stood nearly 10 feet tall at the shoulder. This is not the first evidence of such creatures discovered during the construction of the giant Eastside Reservoir, but Stevie is significant because paleontologists believe the excavation will reveal more than 40% of the long-tusked mammal, including the skull, a tusk, a shoulder and the pelvis.

Scientists earlier unearthed portions of another mastodon thought to be even larger, but only about 10% of that skeleton--named Max--was discovered. Finding Stevie “is the brass ring,” exclaimed Quintin Lake, a paleontologist with the San Bernardino County Museum.

The myriad bones unearthed at the reservoir site may give scientists a far more accurate picture of prehistoric life in Southern California than that provided by the La Brea Tar Pits, long the area’s premier site of prehistoric remains.

There were many excellent skeletons preserved in the Los Angeles site, but primarily of predators and not of their prey. Until now, scientists have thought that mammoths found in the western states were of a different species, and a smaller one, than those discovered in the East. Max and Stevie may have something to say about that.