Curelom

A curelom is an animal mentioned, together with the cumom, in the text of the Book of Mormon:

Ether 9:19 - And they also had horses, and asses, and there were elephants and cureloms and cumoms; all of which were useful unto man, and more especially the elephants and cureloms and cumoms.

Mormons believe that Joseph Smith was given the Nephite derivatives "curelom" and "cumom" rather than some other word variant referring to these animals in his supposed translation of this passage from the Reformed Egyptian. Some Mormons have speculated about what the terms refer to including:

• mastodons or mammoths
• a yet undiscovered, probably extinct species
• some other Central American animal species with which Joseph was unfamiliar such as the tapir or jaguar

Modern paleontologists contend that mastodons and mammoths went extinct thousands of years before Book of Mormon times.