LECTURE: The Elephant Butte Stegomastodon

The Elephant Butte Stegomastodon and other New Mexico Fossil Elephant Discoveries

Gary Morgan, Curator of Paleontology, NMMNHS
December 9 • 7:00 – 8:30pm

MORE INFO: $6 ($5 members, $4 students) Museum Volunteers are FREE. Purchase in advance online to guarantee your seats, go to www.NMnaturalhistory.org or purchase tickets at the admissions desk the night of the event. Doors open at 6:15 pm.

Questions? August Wainwright 
email: programs.NMMNHS@state.nm.us phone: (505) 841-2861

ABOUT THE LECTURE: Campers celebrating a bachelor party at Elephant Butte Reservoir found a very unique fossil this year. It may be the most complete stegomastodon skull ever found, and the only complete one found in New Mexico. This elephant-like animal roamed New Mexico millions of years ago. After careful excavation, the skull is now in the Museum’s Fossilworks exhibit being prepared for research and display. Hear the story of the state’s fossils from an expert on fossil mammals from the last 35 million years, and learn what they can tell us about New Mexico’s past.

Gary Morgan is a curator of vertebrate paleontology at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science. In New Mexico, he has worked on fossil mammals from the Rio Grande Valley south of Las Cruces, cave deposits in Carlsbad Caverns National Park, horses and mammoths in the Gila National Forest, and fossils in Sandia Cave in the Sandia Mountains. He is one of five co-Principal Investigators on a major 5-year NSF-funded international science project to study the paleontology of the Panama Canal.