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Briefly

Teen finds prehistoric mastodon

IOWA CITY (AP) — A teen searching for arrowheads in southern Iowa found something much bigger: the prehistoric jawbone of a mastodon.

The Iowa City Press-Citizen reports that the 30-inch bone belonged to a juvenile mastodon, an elephant-like animal believed to have roamed Iowa some 34,000 years ago.

Officials with the University of Iowa Paleontology Repository, which now has possession of the bone found last week, say the mastodon might have stood around 7-feet tall.

The farmers who donated the jaw and related bones to the repository did so anonymously, saying they didn’t want to encourage people to trespass on their property looking for fossils.

There likely are more fossils on the land, as the owners found other mastodon remains there decades ago.

Florida officials catch big lizard

KEY LARGO, Fla. (AP) — Wildlife officials have finally captured a large invasive Asian water monitor that had been running loose in the Florida Keys for more than a year.

Florida Fish and Wildlife officials posted pictures on Facebook with this caption: “Elusive lizard captured!”

The lizard was more than 5 feet long and weighed 20 pounds.

Crews of staff members and volunteers had been setting traps and searching for the lizard. Once it was caught, the lizard was removed from the wild. Wildlife officials say this helps prevent the establishment of a new nonnative species.

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