Remains of mastodons found in Moldova
Remains of a mastodon limbs (ancestor of mammoth) were discovered by the driver of an excavator while make a series of works on a lake in the Republic of Moldova's capital Chisinau. The lake is in the Valea Morilor park (English: Valley of Mills) with a total area of 114 hectares and it is located in the southwestern part of the city. The lake has an area of 34 hectares and it is being renovated - it has passed already the stage of draining and drying out.
Anatol David, head of the paleontology laboratory of the Institute of Zoology of the Academy of Science of Moldova, stated to BASA-press that a team of researchers examined the ground where the skeleton was discovered in search for other fragments of prehistoric animals.
"Fragments of bones and two teeth of mastodon ivory are about 4-5 million years old and they are in a pretty bad conditions because of the constantly wet soil," said David.
According to the same source, it is an important discovery and quite rare for Moldova.
"If fragments belonging to mammoths were discovered in the [Republic of Moldova] almost every year, fragments of a mastodon are very rare to be found. Around here it was a friendly place for large animals such as mastodons who have desapired some 3 million years ago and their descendants - mammoths - who have despaired tens of thousands of years ago," added David.
Teodor Obada, a researcher of the Zoology Institute of the Moldovan Academy of Sciences, has told Moldpres that the bones belong to more than one mastodon and bones are spread on an area of about 900 square meters.
All fragments of prehistoric animals are being removed from the ground and processed, and, after full investigation, they will be exhibited in the Museum of the Institute of Zoology in Chisinau.
Mastodons or Mastodonts are considered to have first appeared almost four million years ago. They were native to both Eurasia and North America - fossils having been found so far in England, Germany, the Netherlands, Romania, northern Greece and, now, in the Republic of Moldova.
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