The traveling exhibition Mamut. El gigante de la Edad de Hielo by la Fundació “La Caixa” focuses on how these huge animals of the Ice Age were and how their habitat was. The exhibition delves into the causes of the extinction of these mammals that inhabited the planet during the Pliocene, five million years ago, and became extinct only four thousand years ago. In addition to a complete mammoth skeleton, the exhibition also contains unique pieces from other proboscideans —the order of mammals that includes mammoths, elephants, mastodons, and deinotheres, characterized by a versatile trunk used, among other things, to bring food to their mouths— such as molars from different species, including Deinotherium giganteum, loaned by the Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont (ICP).
The discovery of the fossil took place between 2008 and 2009 in the locality of Viladecavalls, near Terrassa (Vallès Occidental). Due to the construction works of the Autovia Orbital de Barcelona B-40, the Servei de Patrimoni Arqueològic i Paleontològic of Generalitat de Catalunya considered necessary to carry out paleontological control due to the high probability of finding fossils in the sediments of this area. The findings from this intervention include plant remains, mollusk shells and vertebrate remains, mostly corresponding to large mammals, including the deinothere molar. The fossils found in the area date back to the middle and upper Miocene.
Image of the M3 molar of Deinotherium giganteum seen from above. The scale bar is 10 cm.
The marks left on the surface of the teeth of extinct species by food provide information about their diet and, at the same time, about the habitat they inhabited. However, in the case of Deinotherium giganteum, its molars gave the species name. In the early 19th century, one of the fathers of paleontology, Georges Cuvier, was the first naturalist to study the molars of these animals. The initial findings puzzled the research team, as it consisted of two simple parallel ridges that were quite high and similar to the teeth of modern tapirs, except that they were much bigger. Cuvier imagined an enormous tapir-like creature and named it Deinotherium giganteum, that means "really huge terrible beast".
Later, when other fossil remains were found, it became clear that it was a proboscidean, related to modern elephants. What distinguishes them from their modern relatives are the downward-curving tusks that grow from the lower jaw. Additionally, their dentition included two premolars and three molars, unlike elephants, which have only one premolar or molar that is replaced by the next tooth as it wears down. Furthermore, elephant teeth are long, compact, and consist of several low ridges, whereas deinotheres have square-shaped teeth with only two high ridges.
Deinotheres were among the largest land mammals that ever inhabited present-day Catalonia. They measured nearly 7 meters in length and reached a height of up to 4.5 meters. They were distributed across Europe, Africa, and Asia but became extinct shortly before the first mammoths.
Main image: Artwork of the life appearance of Deinotherium giganteum. Roc Olivé / © Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont. With the collaboration of Fundación Española para la Ciencia y la Tecnología – Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad.
