New Sheetlets from Czech Republic with stamps on animals
Two Sheets of personalized stamps will be issued in Czech Republic in the end of May. .
Each sheet with 25 stamps and all stamps are featuring different African animals.
The issue honors the former director of the Zoological Park in Dvur Kralove (Czech Republic).
It´s a limited Edition with 1 000 pieces of each sheet only.
- Wolfgang Beyer, BDPh (German Philatelic Federation) and Slavomil Strnad (Czech Philatelic Federation)
- Fossil Mammals in Slovenia - Mastodon
Date of Issue : 23 March 2018
Two million years ago the landscape of Slovenia was very
different from the way we see it today. The soaring Alps in the
west and the forested landscape with patches of marsh and
endless plains in the east were an ideal environment for large
proboscideans and other mammals. One of the last European
mastodons – of the Anancus arvernensis species – would
periodically graze in forest clearings here. Anancus arvernensis
inhabited a large part of Europe, appearing in the late Miocene
and surviving until the start of the Pleistocene. Some other
species inhabited parts of Asia and Africa. The Anancus was
very similar to today's elephants, although with much longer,
straight tusks and different-shaped teeth.
Fossil remains have been found in Slovenia in the Šalek Valley,
near Slovenska Bistrica and in many parts of the Slovenske
Gorice, Čentibske Gorice and Goričko hill regions. Teeth are
the most frequently discovered remains. The best-known site
for such finds was discovered near the village of Škala, not
far from Velenje, where parts of a skeleton and tusks were
also unearthed. The new postage stamp depicts a mastodon
tooth discovered more than 70 years ago in a gravel pit close
to Sveti Andraž in the Slovenske Gorice hill region. This large
tooth (a molar) is from the lower jaw, as also indicated by its
strong root.
The age of the tooth is not entirely clear, but it is
likely to have belonged to an animal that grazed this hill area,
covered with sparse woodland, in the late Pliocene. Changes
in the environment in the early Pleistocene, approximately two
million years ago, also contributed to the extinction of the last
mastodon to roam across the territory of present-day Slovenia.
Today the mastodon's tooth is on display at the Natural History
Museum of Slovenia. The stamp also incorporates a form of
augmented reality: use the HP Reveal app to scan the stamp on
a mobile device and launch an X-ray video of the cross section
of the mastodon's tooth.
Matija Križnar, senior curator, palaeontologist
Natural History Museum of Slovenia
Today the mastodon's tooth is on display at the Natural History
Museum of Slovenia. The stamp also incorporates a form of
augmented reality: use the HP Reveal app to scan the stamp on
a mobile device and launch an X-ray video of the cross section
of the mastodon's tooth.
Source : Slovenia Post
