>In a message dated 3/18/99 8:37:36 PM, [log in to unmask] writes:
>How many skeletons of mastodons and mammoths are in museums in US and World?
>
>I read in a recent Discover magazine that attempts are being made in Japan to
>clone or back breed mammoths for Pleistocene Park in eastern Russia.

I don't know the answer to this one, but in the University of Nebraska
State Museum in Lincoln, NE there is a great piece of label copy in their
Elephant Hall about suspected populations of these wonderful creatures in
what we now call Nebraska.
        Apparently there were so many probiscideans in Nebraska (and espescially
along the Platte River Valley), that if you built a house in the state
there is a one in ten chance their fossil remains will be buried underneath
the structure.
        I recommend contacting the University of Nebraska State Museum concerning
any census of mounted mastodons or mammoths.  Good Luck!

Timothy Reed
GIS/Lab Technician
Office of the State Archaeologist of Iowa
University of Iowa
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