Our dinosaur toy range doesn’t just include dinosaurs so while we say new dinosaur toy both the Mammoth and Mastodon were actually prehistoric animals living "just" 10,000 years ago. So our Mammoth and Mastodon toys look quite similar as the animals did have a lot of similarities, but have some distinct differences.
For a start Mammoths were much larger than Mastodons which were approximately the same size as our modern day elephants. However Mastodons had a lot longer tusks than our elephants, over 13 ft against the tusks of modern day elephants which are approx. 10ft long.
Although both woolly mammoths and the mastodons were vegetarian they actually ate in very different ways. Woolly mammoths were grazers and had flat molars for grinding grasses, while Mastodons were browsers, eating the leaves of low branches and had cone-shaped molars for chewing leaves and twigs.
In fact the characteristic shape of the Mastodon's molar teeth gave it the name Mastodon, meaning nipple tooth.
Mammoths were also hairier and lived in the colder regions of Asia and Europe while Mastodons originated in Africa and were widely found in the warmer regions of North and Central America.
Mastodons, unlike Mammoths, were thought to be solitary animals. Fossils of Mammoths are usually found alongside other Mammoths but Mastodon bones have always been found alone leading scientists to speculate that they did not live in a family pack.
The first documented find of a Mastodon fossil in America was in New York in 1705. A local farmer discovered a fossilized tooth weighing a huge five lbs. The tooth then took an extended journey, first traded to a local politician, supposedly for a glass of rum, it was then sent to the State Governor, the Governor sent it back to England with the label "Tooth of a Giant."
It was many years before it was correctly identified and returned.
So that is the difference between a Woolly Mammoth and a Mastodon, but what is the difference between our Woolly Mammoth toys and our new Mastodon toy and rattle?
To make the difference clearer we have made the Mastodon toy green, although this was not done on the basis of any scientific evidence, we just liked the colour!
The differences we have incorporated in to our Mastodon toy which are based on scientific fact is that the Mastodon has larger ears, a longer, hairier tail and upturned tusks.
And the similarities between our Mastodon toy and our Woolly Mammoth toys? Like The actual beasts themselves they are solid and have 4 legs. And like all Best Years dinosaur toys they are suitable from birth and machine washable.
We hope you like our new dinosaur toy, even if it isn’t exactly a dinosaur toy at all!
