Paula Schultz, age 13, of Dayton, Ohio, for her question:

IS THERE A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE MASTODON AND THE MAMMOTH?

Both the mastodon and the mammoth were animals that looked much like our elephants. Both of the animals are now extinct. There were a number of differences between them.

Mastodons first lived in North Africa about 40 million years ago. They spread to Asia, Europe and the rest of Africa. Mastodons then reached America about 15 million years ago and lived there until at least 8,000 years ago, long after the Indians arrived.

There were about 100 different kinds of mastodons. They were stockier than and not as tall as elephants. Early mastodons had tusks in both jaws. Some of the later species lost the lower tusks. Others developed great, flat, lower tusks. These species are called shoveltuskers.

The mastodon's teeth were up to three inches wide and six inches long. Each tooth had four to six cross rows of heavy enamel cones which the mastodon used to grind plants it ate.

The mastodon was a forest dweller and measured about four and a half feet tall.

The mammoth was also a prehistoric animal that was closely related to our present day elephants. Mammoths were huge, lumbering beasts. Some measured more than 14 feet high at the shoulders. They had trunks and tusks. Many of the tusks were 13 feet long.

The mammoth's tusks curved down from the animal's upper jaw, then curved and crossed in front of the trunk. Certain kinds of mammoths, called woolly or hairy mammoths, had long hair on their bodies to help protect them from the severe cold of the Ice Age.

The oldest mammoth bones date from 4 million years ago in India. Mammoths spread to other continents and reached North America about 500,000 years later, during the Ice Age.

Prehistoric men hunted mammoths for food. Pictures of the animals drawn by cave dwellers can be seen on the walls of caves in southern France.

Mammoths lived in the frozen regions of North America, Europe and Asia. They died out about 10,000 years ago.

Mammoths had complex, many ridged molar teeth.

Mammoths rank among the most common fossils. The bodies of mammoths have been found perfectly preserved in ice in Siberia. Alaskan miners often wash petrified mammoth bones and teeth out of gravel when they pan for gold.

Fossils of the enormous mammoths have also been found in New York and Texas.

Ivory hunters have collected mammoth tusks for centuries in Siberia, where some 50,000 have been found. Four nearly whole mammoths have been discovered as well as many of the remains of another 40. Museums around the world display these treasures of the past.

Mastodons belong to the mastodon family, Mammutidae. The American mastodon is genus Mammut, species M. americanum. The European mastodon is M. angustidens.

Mammoths belong to the elephant family, Elephantidae. They make up the genus Mammuthus.