Mammuthus columbi (Falconer, 1857)

Davis, Matt, Nye, Benjamin D., Sinatra, Gale M., Swartout, William, Sjӧberg, Molly, Porter, Molly, Nelson, David, Kennedy, Alana A. U., Herrick, Imogen, Weeks, Danaan DeNeve & Lindsey, Emily, 2022, Designing scientifically-grounded paleoart for augmented reality at La Brea Tar Pits, Palaeontologia Electronica (a 9) 25 (1), pp. 1-37 : 25-26

Mammuthus columbi

( Figure 17 )

Appearance. Our virtual Columbian mammoth model ( Figure 17 ) followed a life-sized sculpture of Mammuthus columbi recently installed in the Tar Pits Museum. The detailed, life-sized reconstruction of the Columbian mammoth was originally produced for the Field Museum’s travelling exhibition Mammoths and Mastodons: Titans of the Ice Age by Blue Rhino Studios, a well-known museum exhibition fabricator. Little is known about the soft tissue of Columbian mammoths and purported finds of preserved hair ( De Pastino, 2015) have not been formally described yet. Given their large size, they likely had no trouble conserving heat in relatively warm environments like Pleistocene Southern California (or Mexico where they are also found) and are typically reconstructed with minimal hair in paleoart both at the Tar Pits ( Figures 1 , 2 ) and elsewhere.

Behavior. We used modern African elephants ( Loxodonta africana ), as animation references. Based on the behavior of modern elephants and numerous monodominant localities (i.e., “crowd” finds) of Columbian mammoth fossils, Mammuthus columbi probably lived in herds of around 20 individuals (Haynes, 1991; Haynes and Klimowicz, 2003; Hoppe, 2004). Although it would take up too much room to show a full herd of mammoths, we showed several mammoths at a time when we could in our virtual experiences.

DAVIS ET AL.: LA BREA TAR PITS PALEOART

American Mastodon

Figures

FIGURE 1. The iconic Columbian mammoth family at La Brea Tar Pits sculpted by Howard Ball. Image by Y-Z on free- imageslive.co.uk.

FIGURE 2. A. Mural of La Brea Tar Pits painted by Charles Knight in 1925. B. Mural of La Brea Tar Pits painted by Mark Hallett in 1988 ©Mark Hallett. The Hallett image is not published under the terms of the CC-BY license of this article. For permission to reuse, please contact Mark Hallett.

FIGURE 17. Low poly reconstruction of the extinct Columbian mammoth (Mammuthus columbi). To view this model in 3D, please see the online version of this article.