The Higgins Bedford is currently closed but when we reopen you can visit the Settlement Gallery to see our collections. In the Settlement Gallery there is a mammoth molar in the case called “Sculpted by Ice” (item no.2). They look amazing – and they are.
For a start, mammoth molars are amongst the largest grinding teeth of any animal ever, averaging at around 15 cm in length. They needed them, for chewing the coarse grass and sedges that they lived on. It's said that mammoth teeth are as tough as any rock as more have survived throughout the years compared to their bones.
Did you know that, like us, mammoths had milk teeth and adult teeth? But unlike us, they had six sets in their lives. Once a tooth was worn down from grinding food, new molars grew from the back of the jaw, and moved forward to replace worn-out ones - just like modern elephants. This process continued until the sixth set was in place and was used for the rest of the mammoth's life. There were no more teeth to replace the sixth set once it was worn down which meant that mammoths struggled to grind down and eat their food.
We have molars, incisors and canine teeth. Mammoths didn’t have canines, and they only had four molars at a time, two at the top, two at the bottom. They had two incisors which grew throughout their lives – their tusks. You can read about Mammoth tusks in our previous post HERE.
Written by Sarah, Collections Volunteer.
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