The trumpeting of mastodons could be heard in the suddenly prehistoric pavilion of the Mid-Hudson Children’s Museum last week, at the unveiling of a replica of the Hyde Park Mastodon.
“When we first found it, we didn’t think it was prehistoric,” said Sheryl Lozier, who said she thought her husband had unearthed an elephant while excavating their Haviland Road home’s pond in 1999. At the time of the discovery, the Loziers had no idea that their site was also home to a 15,000-pound mastodon who had died there roughly 11,500 years ago.
Larry Lozier first uncovered the animal’s humerus – a leg bone which was the size of the Lozier’s daughter, Laura. At the time of the discovery Laura was in first grade – today, she’s a freshman at Franklin D. Roosevelt High School.
The remaining bones of the Hyde Park Mastodon were excavated in the summer of 2000 by a team of scientists and volunteers who were led by Warren Allmon, director of the Paleontological Research Institute in Ithaca. After carbon-dating the bones, scientists were able to determine that the mastodon was a male between 30 and 40 years old at the time of his death. Core samples taken from the sediment surrounding the fossil suggest that the vegetation at the time was similar to that found today in the Hudson Bay region of Canada.
“It was cold,” said Jill Schneiderman, professor of earth science at Vassar College, during a press conference at the Children’s Museum on May 23. Schneiderman was the sedimentologist during the excavation.
“This discovery doesn’t just tell us about biodiversity, it tells about our environment 11,000 years ago, when these animals lived,” Schneiderman said.
Mastodons are the extinct relatives of modern elephants. They are thought to have appeared nearly 4 million years ago, and lived throughout a wide area of North America until the end of the last glacial period, about 10,000 years ago.
The casting of the bones for the museum’s exhibit was performed by Dr. Daniel Fisher and his staff at the University of Michigan’s Museum of Paleontology. The project was funded by a grant from the Dyson Foundation.
“We were originally contacted by Paleontological Research Institute in Ithaca, where the original mastodon bones are assembled and on display. They felt that a replica really needed to be in Dutchess County, where the mastodon was found,” said Diana M. Gurieva, the foundation’s executive vice president.
“We agreed to do it, and we helped the institute identify an institution for the replica. The Children’s Museum seemed like the logical place – we thought that it was a wonderful educational opportunity for young people,” she said.
Now the mastodon is in the museum’s pavilion to stay, and it will become the focal point of a biodiversity exhibit this fall.
“We want to build an exhibit around the mastodon that will allow children to climb and walk through the area, and allow them to get near the bones. The setting will have a prehistoric backdrop, so the kids can get close to it and have a fun time with it,” said museum’s executive director, Edward Glisson.
The exhibit will also include a number of Hudson River-related components, including early life along the river, Henry Hudson’s voyage up the river and a hands-on research lab of the river today.
“We want to encourage kids to be looking at the river, and to see the life that the river supports. We think that this exhibit will allow people to look back in time and see how things have change, which will enable them to look forward – to be aware that the choices we make and the decision we chose, are going to have an effect on how we live. The mastodons aren’t here because something happened,” said Glisson.
Approximately 300 cast fiberglass bones were sent to Trenton, Ontario, Canada, where they were assembled by Research Casting International, before making their way to Poughkeepsie. They arrived at the museum in eight large pieces that were put together with the help of scaffolding and a pulley system.
“This is an animal that was here pretty recently,” said Glisson. “I hope people will come and see the mastodon, and I hope they will enjoy seeing it.”