Biola’s Mammoth Specimen to Join The Natural History Museum

Biola’s donation will fill in pre-ice age paleontological gaps

NEWS RELEASE EXCERPT – Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County patrons will now be able to view a piece of history previously discovered on Biola University’s campus in La Mirada — a Columbian Mammoth. In 2022, Biola’s treasured mammoth specimen found its new home in the tapestry of time captured at the LA museum.

Found in 2002 during the construction of Hope Hall, Biola’s anthropology students excavated parts of the skull with two teeth, tusk, and associated bones of the skeleton prior to it being donated.

Collection Manager for Vertebrate Paleontology at the Natural History Museum, Dr. Samuel A. McLeod, helped coordinate the donation. Each collection at the museum is active, meaning paleontological gaps are continuously filled in, contributing to a more cohesive historical timeline. Selectivity has increased, however, as the Natural History Museum sifts through which donations they accept.

“It has to be something that we can take care of, something that fits within our priorities, something that has good documentation on where it came from,” said McLeod.

Biola’s mammoth donation fits into this timeline well…

Click here to read the entire article written and photographed by Abigail Goosen, Strategic Communications Assistant at Biola University.

Source: Biola University