SE Texas Tusk - Mammoth or Mastodon?

[johnnyvaldez7.jv]

Went out for a couple of hours today and came back with some good stuff and lots of questions about different things I found.  I haven't had a chance to clean the specimens up and will this evening... but I'll start with this one. Pretty sure this is a piece of tusk. I can see the cross bands in some of the images. Is the entire thing enamel? Don't know anything about enamel. I see what looks like 2 layers... are both completely enamel? Also... how would you know whether it came from a mammoth or a Mastodon? Found in SE Texas on a gravel bank. 

[Brandy Cole]

So you may already know that the angle of Schreger lines (concave vs convex) helps to determine between mammoth and mastodon.  And in South Texas, we also had gomphothere.  I'm terrible at keeping the differences straight, but this post may be useful to you.

 

 

 

 

 

[johnnyvaldez7.jv]

@Brandy Cole Thank you.  I'll definitely check it out. 

[Lorne Ledger]

There is also Cuvieronius tropicus in south texas.  Tusks from them can be differentiated by a groove that spirals on the outside of the tusk.  I have found two such tusk fragments on the brazos river in the past.  That is the texas gomphothere.

[johnnyvaldez7.jv]

@Lorne Ledger Thanks Lorne! Did either of those fragments look like this sample? 

[Lorne Ledger]

no they did not.  What you have there is either mammoth or mastodon in my opinion.