Chris Hammersley, age 10, of Wichita, Kan., for his question:

WHAT IS A MASTODON?

The mastodon lived on earth for millions of years, but

about 8,000 years ago he became extinct. He looked like an elephant and belonged to the family of prehistoric elephant ancestors. He was chunkier and not quite as tall as a modern elephant and wore a coat of shaggy hair. In the remote past there were about 100 different mastodon species. Some of the early types had tusks in both their upper and lower jaws. Later types lost the pair of tusks in the lower jaw.

The long story of the mastodons is revealed by their fossilized bones. There were early types in North Africa about 35 million years ago. From there they seem to have spread to

Europe and Asia. About 12 million years ago, mastodons made themselves at home in North America  and here they lived through the long dreary ice ages