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BookmarkMastodons or Mastodonts are members of an extinct genus Mammut of the order Proboscidea; they resembled, but were distinct from, the woolly mammoth.
While mastodons were furry like woolly mammoths, and similar in height at roughly three meters at the shoulder, the resemblance was superficial.
They differed from mammoths primarily in the blunt, conical shape of their teeth, which were more suited to chewing leaves than the high-crowned teeth mammoths used for grazing.
Their skulls were larger and flatter than those of mammoths, while their skeleton was stockier and more robust.
Mastodons also seem to have lacked the undercoat characteristic of mammoths.
The tusks of the mastodon sometimes exceeded five meters in length, and were nearly horizontal, another contrast with more strongly curved mammoth tusks..
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