Jeffersonian trivia

Little known facts:

1. Former American President Thomas Jefferson was an avid amateur palaeontologist.
2. In an attempt to mock him, his political opponents gave him the nickname “Mr. Mammoth” during the 1808 election.
3. He is credited with the discovery of an enormous ground sloth, larger than an elephant, that inhabited North America during the late Pleistocene.
4. The creature now bears his name: Megalonyx jeffersonii.

These and many other entertaining facts come from the marvellous recent book The World Without Us, which has leapt to the top of my reading pile. I will post a full review when I finish it.

Author: Milan

In the spring of 2005, I graduated from the University of British Columbia with a degree in International Relations and a general focus in the area of environmental politics. Between 2005 and 2007 I completed an M.Phil in IR at Wadham College, Oxford. I worked for five years for the Canadian federal government, including completing the Accelerated Economist Training Program, and then completed a PhD in Political Science at the University of Toronto in 2023. View all posts by Milan