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The Collaborative International Dictionary
Mastodon

Mastodon \Mas"to*don\, n. [Gr. masto`s the breast + 'odoy`s, 'odo`ntos, a tooth. So called from the conical projections upon its molar teeth.] (Paleon.) An extinct genus of mammals closely allied to the elephant, but having less complex molar teeth, and often a pair of lower, as well as upper, tusks, which are incisor teeth. The species were mostly larger than elephants, and their remains occur in nearly all parts of the world in deposits ranging from Miocene to late Quaternary time.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
mastodon

1813, from Modern Latin genus name Mastodon (1806), coined by French naturalist Georges Léopole Chrétien Frédéric Dagobert, Baron Cuvier (1769-1832) from Greek mastos "breast" (see masto-) + -odon "tooth" (see tooth); so called from the nipple-like projections on the crowns of the extinct mammal's fossil molars. Related: Mastodontic.

Wiktionary
mastodon

n. Extinct elephant-like mammal of the genus ''Mammut'' that flourished worldwide from Miocene through Pleistocene times; differs from elephants and mammoths in the form of the molar teeth.

WordNet
mastodon

n. extinct elephant-like mammal that flourished worldwide from Miocene through Pleistocene times; differ from mammoths in the form of the molar teeth [syn: mastodont]

Wikipedia
Mastodon

Mastodons ( Greek: μαστός "breast" and ὀδούς, "tooth") are any species of extinct mammutid proboscideans in the genus Mammut, distantly related to elephants, that inhabited North and Central America during the late Miocene or late Pliocene up to their extinction at the end of the Pleistocene 10,000 to 11,000 years ago. Mastodons lived in herds and were predominantly forest dwelling animals that fed on a mixed diet obtained by browsing and grazing with a seasonal preference for browsing, similar to living elephants.

M. americanum, the American mastodon, is the youngest and best-known species of the genus. They disappeared from North America as part of a mass extinction of most of the Pleistocene megafauna, widely presumed to have been related to overexploitation by Clovis hunters, and possibly also to climate change.

Mastodon (band)

Mastodon is an American heavy metal band from Atlanta, Georgia, formed in early 2000 and composed of bassist Troy Sanders, guitarists Brent Hinds and Bill Kelliher and drummer Brann Dailor. Their musical style features progressive concepts and unique instrumentation. All four members participate in vocals, creating a unique blend of singing styles and voices.

Mastodon has released six studio albums, as well as a number of other records. The band's debut album, Remission, released in 2002, garnered significant critical acclaim for its unique sound. Mastodon's second full-length release, Leviathan, is a concept album based on the novel Moby-Dick by Herman Melville. Three magazines awarded the record Album of the Year in 2004: Revolver, Kerrang! and Terrorizer. The song " Colony of Birchmen" from the band's 2006 third album, Blood Mountain, was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance in 2007. Blood Mountain was followed in 2009 by Crack the Skye, and in 2011 by The Hunter, which achieved major commercial success in the United States, debuting at No. 10 on the Billboard 200 chart. The Hunter features the song " Curl of the Burl", which was nominated for a Grammy for Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance in 2012. Mastodon's 2014 full-length, Once More 'Round the Sun, peaked at No. 6 on the Billboard 200 chart and features the band's third Grammy-nominated song, " High Road".

Mastodon (steam locomotive)

Mastodon was the unofficial name of the Central Pacific Railroad's number 229, the world's first successful 4-8-0 steam locomotive.

Mastodon (album)

Mastodon is the only box set released by the American heavy metal band of the same name. It features all of their material released by Relapse Records plus Blood Mountain which was originally released on Reprise Records. The box set was limited to 1100 copies and all records were pressed on 180 gram vinyl. The box set was released by Relapse records with no input from the band.

Mastodon (disambiguation)

Mastodon is a large, elephant-like, extinct mammal.

Mastodon may also refer to:

  • Mastodon (band), an American heavy metal band
    • Mastodon (album), a box set released by the band's former label
  • Mastedon, an American Christian rock band formed by brothers John Elefante and Dino Elefante
  • Mastodon (steam locomotive) (CPR #229), the very first steam locomotive of the 4-8-0 wheel arrangement
    • A nickname for the 4-8-0 wheel arrangement
  • Mastodon Township, Michigan
  • IPFW Mastodons, the athletic teams and mascot of Indiana University – Purdue University Fort Wayne

Usage examples of "mastodon".

Apparently, the giant ground sloth and the short-faced grizzly also dwelt in the forests and plains along with the humpless camel, the mammoth, and the mastodon.

Humans, large terrestrial metazoans, fired by energy from microbial symbionts lodged in their cells, instructed by tapes of nucleic acid stretching back to the earliest live membranes, informed by neurons essentially the same as all the other neurons on earth, sharing structures with mastodons and lichens, living off the sun, are now in charge, running the place, for better or worse.

There were some anomalies in the relationships of the things discovered, but it was not as fishy as it had been in the early morning, not as fishy as when Anteros had announced and then dug out the shards of the pot, the three points, the mastodon bone.

It was the song a smilodon sings when he has crept close to his prey, the song that frightens even mastodons so much they often charge in the wrong direction and are stabbed from behind.

America, as it was the end of the mammoth and the mastodon and smilodon, the saber-toothed cat, and the huge ground sloth, except that at about the time the original bison vanished, a much smaller and better-adapted version developed in Asia and made its own long trek across a new bridge into America.

For in the mere act of penning my thoughts of this Leviathan, they weary me, and make me faint with their outreaching comprehensiveness of sweep, as if to include the whole circle of the sciences, and all the generations of whales, and men, and mastodons, past, present, and to come, with all the revolving panoramas of empire on earth, and throughout the whole universe, not excluding its suburbs.

Americas the mastodons survived until the arrival of the Indians, who became great mastodon hunters.

Russets and ochres and siennas outlined charging boars and fleeing gazelles, woolly mastodons and giant sloths: he imagined that the paintings had to be thousands of years old, but then they turned a corner, and he noticed that, in the same style, there were lorries, house cats, cars, andmarkedly inferior to the other images, as if only glimpsed infrequently, and from a long way awayairplanes.

His cataracts at smooth holiday, soon to roar Obstruction shattered at his will or whim: Kind to her ear as quiring Cherubim, And trampling earth like scornful mastodons.

The three rode back to the hacienda, where they found that the Chilean engineers had returned from another fruitless search for Alvarez and the mastodon.

They grew to the size of snowballs, breadbaskets, mastodons, houses, skyscrapers, mountains, worldlets.

I was with the Philadelphia Institute expedition in the Bad Lands under Professor Cope, hunting mastodon bones, and I overheard him say, his own self, that any plantigrade circumflex vertebrate bacterium that hadn't wings and was uncertain was a reptile.

The one in this bubble is a genetically crafted Mammut americanum, or American mastodon.

Kickaha flew just above the grass and the swelling hills and the trees and the great gray mammoths and mastodons and the giant shaggy black buffalo and the wild horses and the gawky, skinny, scared-faced Plains camels.

When I found in La Plata [Argentina] the tooth of a horse embedded with the remains of Mastodon, Megatherium, Toxodon, and other extinct monsters, which all co-existed at a very late geological period, I was filled with astonishment.