Woolly mammoth
Mammuthus primigenius
Frozen remains preserve hair, stomach contents and DNA, making mammoths exceptionally well studied.
Image: Lou.gruber · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
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Sites on today's globe · 1 marker
Characteristics
- Scientific name
- Mammuthus primigenius
- Period
- Late Pleistocene–Holocene
- Lived
- 0.7–0.004 Ma (700,000 years ago)
- Diet
- Herbivore
- Habitat
- Polar, Plains
- Length (estimate)
- 3.4 m
- Mass (estimate)
- 6,000 kg
Description
The woolly mammoth had a dense coat, small ears, a layer of fat and long, inward-curving tusks. It grazed on grasses and other steppe plants and lived in herds, as indicated by teeth and bone finds. Small populations survived on Wrangel Island until about four thousand years ago. Climate change, habitat loss and human hunting probably acted together in its eventual disappearance.
Habitat
The cold mammoth steppe of Eurasia and North America.
Fossil sites
Wrangel Island, East Siberian Sea
Cultural profile: Russia →
Contemporaries in the database
Sources: Wolharige mammoet