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Moorpark may give mammoth to museum
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More from Local NewsThe Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History might get a haunt of Ice Age proportions as Moorpark city officials decide the future of a fossilized mammoth skeleton found more than two years ago.
The complete skeleton of the elephantlike creature, believed to be nearly 1 million years old, was originally thought to be an imperial mammoth. Further examination found it belonged to a much older and rarer group, the Archidiskodon meridionalis, or southern mammoth.
The Moorpark City Council will decide next week whether to donate the specimen to the Santa Barbara museum.
Hugh Riley, assistant city manager, said he expects the council will approve the gift. "I think this is a really wonderful thing," he said.
The skeleton was found in March 2005 during construction of the Meridian Hills housing development north of downtown Moorpark.
Moorpark requires construction contractors to hire an on-site paleontology expert, and the practice paid off when a machine struck the skeletal remains. The expert stopped construction and determined the remains were worthy of excavation.
The city retained ownership of the skeleton, and the bones have since been housed in a warehouse laboratory in Santa Ana for cleaning and plaster-casting.
"We're very excited, and we think it will attract people from all over the place," said Karl Hutterer, executive director of the Santa Barbara museum.
The museum hopes to eventually use the remains to create an exhibit showing how such skeletal displays are constructed.
Hutterer said he's unsure how long it would take but thinks there is enough local interest in natural history to make it possible.
"We hope we can convince individuals to donate money to this," he said.
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