About Wooly Mammoths

Charecteristics

• The wooly mammoth had an average size close to modern Asian elephant, while the largest mammoth, the Imperial Mammoth of California, has been known to reach 13 feet at the shoulder. Most mammoths weighed between six and eight tons, but fossils of smaller dwarf mammoths have been discovered in Siberia, the Mediterranean islands, and the Californian channel islands. Wooly mammoths had thick fur up to a meter long to protect them from the harsh cold.

Evolution

• Wooly mammoths are believed to come from Africa over 4.8 million years ago. Though originating in Africa, mammoths are genetically closer to the Asian elephants which split from African elephants about 7 million years ago. The mammoth migrated north into Eurasia and east over the Bering Land bridge into North America. As the next ice age set in, the mammoths adapted with thick fur and a fat layer for insulation. The wooly mammoth in its final form came to be around 300,000 year ago.

Extinction

• Mammoths are believed to have gone extinct at the end of the last ice age. Rising temperatures led way to a decreased food supply. The mammoth also became a food source for humans, who had discovered more advanced hunting methods. The rising temperatures also shrank the mammoth habitat as glaciers shrank. There is also evidence that mammoths may have suffered from infectious disease. All of these theories may have contributed to the mammoth's disappearance.

Discovery

• The first wooly mammoth remains to be studied were teeth and tusks found by British Scientists in Sibera in 1728. In 1796, a French scientist named Georges Cuvier established that the remains were not of an elephant, but were in fact a new species that had gone extinct. During this time, wooly mammoth remains were also discovered in North America.
  While frozen mammoth remains had been discovered for years, the first complete specimen was uncovered by a hunter in Siberia in 1799. The hunter thawed the mammoth carcass which took several years, so that he could harvest the Ivory from the mammoth's great tusks. The hunter left the carcass to decay until what remained of the specimen was rescued by Mikhail Adams, a Scottish scientist who gave the mammoth to the Zoological Museum of the Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences in St. Petersberg, where it remains on display today.

The Remains

• Many mammoths have been discovered in frozen, non-fossilized form in the northern parts of Siberia. This is usually a rare occurrence that happens when a specimen is buried very quickly under semi-solids such as silt, mud and icy water, which then freezes rapidly to trap the undamaged specimen. Because mammoths lived in the icy tundra environment, they may have been at higher risk of being buried under avalanches, falling in frozen rivers, getting caught in bogs, or dying of exposure, all of which could provide the proper conditions to freeze the animal. Of the 39 frozen bodies found to date, four have provided completely intact specimens.