Guide Note

A mammoth is a prehistoric species of large land mammal in the order Proboscidea closely related and similar in appearance to modern-day elephants. Fossil records show that mammoths inhabited much of the world from about 4.8 million to 4,000 years ago and lived in North America from around 1.8 million to 11,000 years ago. Most species of mammoth had large curved tusks similar to those of living elephant species, but unlike elephants, both female and male mammoths had tusks.

Most mammoths began to go extinct near the end of the Ice Age, when sea levels rose and transformed may of the mammoth-inhabited grasslands into forests. The human effect on mammoth extinction is a matter of contest among scientists, but fossil records have proved that the two species definitely coexisted and humans hunted and consumed mammoth meat as early as 1.8 million years ago. Climate change and human hunting were likely both contributing factors to mammoth extinction.

Fast Facts

1. Most mammoths were similar in size to the modern African elephant
2. First described in 1799 Johann Friedrich Blumenback
3. 11 known mammoth species
4. Estimated average life span: 60 years
5. Fossilized stomach contents have shown that mammoths ate various grasses
6. Some mammoths, such as the Woolly Mammoth had long, dark hair
7. Dwarf mammoths lived on Wrangel Island up to 2,000 BC
8. Some scientists theorize that mammoths became extinct because of an infectious disease

The largest land mammals, elephants have lived on earth for an estimated 55 million years and have existed as 500 separate species. About two million years ago, the African and Asian species of elephant, both of which continue to exist in modern times, diverged to form separate species. Shortly thereafter, mammoths, which were ultimately elephants specialized to live in cooler climates, diverged from the Asian elephant. This means that mammoths, if they were alive today, would be more closely related to the Asian elephant than the existing African elephants are.