Mastodon exhibit opening at N.S. Museum of Natural History

Remains of an 80,000-year-old mastodon that lived in East Milford, N.S., will be going on display this weekend at the Museum of Natural History in Halifax.

The exhibit — Age of the Mastodon — will feature remains discovered by a heavy machine operator roughly 30 years ago. The operator was preparing to mine gypsum at a quarry when large teeth, a tusk and some bones were found.

"The exhibit is going to be pretty awe-inspiring I think, the large bones of the mastodon will be on display ... as well as a mounted skeleton right in the middle of the room so that people can really see how big this animal was and what it looked like," Tim Fedak, curator of geology for the Nova Scotia Museum, told CBC's Information Morning.

Fedak said mastodons were similar to elephants in appearance and size, but had fur and were about three metres tall at the shoulder. Mastodons roamed Nova Scotia roughly 80,000 years ago.

A lot of work has gone into preparing for the exhibit, Fedak said.

When the fossils were first collected, some of the bones were in pieces — and it's taken a lot of time to put them back together. For example, Fedak said it took two to three weeks to restore the 15-kilogram, metre-and-a-half long tusk.

Though mastodons had a lot of similarities with elephants, one of the biggest differences were their teeth.

"Mastodons had these really chisel-like teeth that came together and would pulverize tree branches, particularly spruce trees. Elephants ... their teeth are flat and plate-like and are better for grinding grasses. So very different eating strategies," Fedak said.

Mastodons, Fedak said, lived in the woods near sinkhole ponds "and this animal [that was found] probably, 80,000 years ago, fell into this sinkhole and was buried."

In researching this mastodon, Fedak said he's come to find sinkholes really interesting because of how much they can preserve.

"They record everything from that time period. Little freshwater snails, the sponges, we have fossil birds, turtles, frogs — it really captures everything around that little woods that surrounded sinkhole pond," he said.