Mammoth

Mammoth, common name for several extinct species of the elephant family. Mammoths had long, curved tusks that reached a length of about 3 m (about 10.5 ft), and a prominent hump on the back. Those that lived in cold climates had a shaggy covering of long, thick hair. These animals moved northward as Ice Age glaciers receded.

The first mammoths appeared in Africa during the early Pliocene Epoch, about 5 million years ago. The first North American mammoths migrated across the Bering Strait from Asia into Alaska during a period of low sea level about 2 million years ago. By the beginning of the Pleistocene Epoch, about 1.6 million years ago, mammoths inhabited North America, Europe, and Asia. Scientists believe that most mammoths had died out toward the end of the Pleistocene Epoch, about 11,000 years ago, although researchers have found the remains of dwarf mammoths that survived until around 3,700 years ago on Wrangel Island in the Arctic Ocean.

The largest mammoths, such as the steppe mammoth (Mammuthus trogontherii), lived in Eurasian wooded and meadowlike habitats. Adult males stood about 5 m (about 16 ft) high at the shoulders, weighed up to 18 metric tons, and had tusks up to 5 m (16 ft) long. The woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius), characterized by a thick hairy coat that helped it to adapt to its cold tundra environment, was plentiful in northern regions during the late Pleistocene Epoch. The woolly mammoth was about the size of the modern Asian elephant, about 3 m (10 ft) tall at the shoulders. The smallest known mammoth (Mammuthus lamarmorae) was less than 1.5 m (5 ft) tall and lived on the Mediterranean island of Sardinia during the late Pleistocene Epoch.

The first complete specimen of a frozen mammoth was unearthed near the Lena River in Siberia in 1806 by Scottish botanist Mikhail Adams. Since then a number of mammoth specimens have been discovered in Siberia, Europe, and North America, including one of the largest species identified to date, the American mammoth (Mammuthus imperator), which reached a height of 4.3 m (14 ft). In 1999 scientists working in Siberia recovered the complete remains of a woolly mammoth embedded in frozen mud containing plants and insects that lived 20,000 years ago. Using a helicopter, the scientists transported the specimen to an ice cave about 300 km (200 mi) away. Scientists planned to slowly thaw their find and perform tests on the remains to identify the reason the animal died. They also planned to study the plants and insects found in the frozen mud encasing the carcass to learn more about the environment the animal lived in.

Scientists first extracted the genetic material deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) from mammoth remains in 1978. Thirty years later, scientists mapped woolly mammoth DNA. The DNA was obtained from woolly mammoth hair that was found in Siberian permafrost. According to the DNA map, modern elephants and woolly mammoths share more than 99 percent of their genes. Various earlier studies revealed that the woolly mammoth is more closely related to Asian elephants than to African elephants. The woolly mammoth is the first extinct mammal to have its DNA decoded.