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53 N. Macdonald
Mesa, AZ 85201
(One block north of Main Street in downtown Mesa.
Take US 60 or 202 to Country Club Drive, go to Main
Street, and proceed one-half mile east to
Macdonald) -
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Map
Phone:
480-644-2230
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Cenozoic Lobby
Welcome to the Arizona Museum of Natural History!
As you enter the museum through the Cenozoic Lobby,
animals dating from the Pliocene-Pleistocene Epochs,
approximately 3 million years to 10,000 years ago,
greet you. These include mammoth, mastodon, American
lion, one-toed horse, the armadillo-like
Glyptotherium, and four species of fossil
turtles.
Columbian mammoth, Mammuthus columbi.
Mammoths entered North America from Eurasia via the
Beringia land bridge from Asia to North America
between 1.6 and 1.3 million years ago. There are
several species of mammoth, but all identified with
certainty from Arizona are Columbian mammoths.
Columbian mammoths stood up to 13 feet (4 meters)
tall at the shoulder and weighed 9.8 tons (10,000
kilograms). They grew tusks up to 16 feet (4.9
meters), the longest in the elephant family!
American mastodon, Mammut americanum,
lived approximately from 3.75 million years ago
until 10,000 years ago. This individual, the largest
mastodon on display in the world, died between about
17,000 and 13,000 years ago. Mastodons were woodland
animals with teeth more adapted to browsing branches
than were the grinding teeth of the grass-grazing,
more open country mammoths. Adult mastodons stood
between 8 and 10 feet (2.5-3 meters) at the shoulder
and weighed between 4 and 6 tons (3,500 –5,400
kilograms).
The one-toed Hagerman Horse and a limb, skull and
tracks of the three-toed horse, Nannippus.
Both horses occur at the AzMNH’s 111 Ranch
excavations.
The American lion, Pantheria atrox. The
American lion is a little larger than an African
lion. The American lion was a powerful predator with
large canines and retractable claws. The lion
probably killed such large prey as ancient horse and
bison and smaller animals such as antelope and deer.
The American lion became extinct about 10,000 years
ago.
Turtles and tortoises from the 111 Ranch beds in
southeastern Arizona, about 2.4 million year old.
Left rear: North American giant tortoise,
Hesperotestudo. Left front: gopher tortoise,
Gopherus. Right front: an accumulation of
western box turtles, Terrepene ornata.
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