mastodon

Ohio Museum Wraps Up Move Of Mastodon Skeleton

How do you move a one-ton, 10,000-year-old mastodon? The easiest answer is, of course, very carefully. Workers today finished up a three-day adventure of moving the massive 10-foot-tall skeleton. The mastodon skeleton is named Conway after the man who unearthed it in western Ohio in 1887 and used to be placed rear first at the Ohio Historical Society but it has been moved to a more flattering position. The marvelous mastodon once traveled around to Ohio country fairs in horse-drawn carriage but was last moved in 1993 during renovations at the historical society.

The move was done in pieces with a crew of six to eight people first removing the front and hind legs from the 10-foot-tall skeleton and then the head and tusks. The skeleton will now be placed so that visitors get a more appealing side view of Conway as they enter. You can learn more about it from Conway's point of view in a Facebook page that has been set up for the popular attraction.

Mastodon skeletons are a rarity and very valuable. A few years ago a California family put a mastodon skeleton on eBay looking for a minimum bid of $115,000. It didn't sell.

Tags: mastodon, mastodon skeleton, ohio historical society

Mastodon Skeleton Up For Sale on eBay Didn't Sell

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Auctions

We've all got things in our garage we need to get rid of but California resident Nancy Fiddler really needed the room, she has an entire mastodon skeleton in there. Fiddler and her family put the skeleton on eBay looking for a minimum bid of $115,000. The family, which discovered the skeleton in 1997 on their ranch in northeastern California, needed the money and wanted their space back. The story was covered by Retuers and other places. After all, it's not often you get an ancient elephant-like creature up for sale even if there were no tusks with this one. The skeleton had been displayed at the Oakland Museum of Natural History and later at a wine bar.

It turns out there is a bit of a fossil glut on eBay and while an entire mastodon skeleton is a rarity, so was the six-figure price and it did not sell. The Fiddlers said before the auction ended that if it did not sell they would hold on to it a while longer.

Source

Tags: ebay, mastodon, skeleton