When and where did the last mammoths live? Brief information about mammoths. Mammoth extinction due to climate change

Among the thousands of extinct species there is also an animal mammoth. Scientists are trying to reproduce this species. But they fail to find viable cells for IVF. Probably, people will never see a live mammoth, but we can tell you about it.

These mysterious animals mammoths

Man has always been interested and will be interested in what our Earth was like in ancient times, what plants grew on it, what animals inhabited its vast expanses.

Conducting numerous archaeological excavations, scientists discovered the existence of mysterious animals that lived on Earth 2 million years ago.

Recreated from the remains of the skeleton and bones, these huge animals, almost 6 m high and weighing 12 tons, inspire fear. Their tusks looked especially menacing, curved, up to 4 m long.

In fact, despite their large size, these animals were harmless, as they ate only plant foods. To grind this rough food, nature rewarded the beast with a special structure of teeth in the form of many thin plates.

Who are mammoths

Have you guessed who we are talking about? Of course, these are mammoths. The ancient ancestors of modern elephants, they lived on almost all continents - North America, Africa, Eurasia. But although mammoths look like elephants, they were twice the size of the largest species of them today - African elephants.

Of the external signs, in addition to a massive body and curved tusks, short legs and long hair are also characteristic.

One of the mammoth species that lived in Siberia 300 thousand years ago was called woolly.

All about the woolly mammoth

His coat was thick and almost 1 m long. It is clear that she constantly strayed into hanging tufts. The thick undercoat kept the animal from freezing in winter.

The same purpose was served by a thick layer of fat 10 cm under the skin. The color of the coat was most likely dark brown or black tones. Although the surviving remnants of the hair are more of a reddish color, scientists believe that she simply faded.

Woolly mammoths were not as large as all species. And they were the last ones to disappear from the Earth.

It was possible to establish that mammoths led the same way of life as elephants. They lived in a group. There were more often 9 mammoths of different ages in it. The female commanded everything, that is, these animals had a matriarchy. The males lived separately from the group.

Their main food is grass. But they also ate branches of various deciduous trees and even pine trees. This was established after examining the contents of the stomach of a mammoth found on the Indigirka River.

In general, their remains were often found in Siberia. The largest burial was found in the Novosibirsk region. The bones of 1500 individuals are buried under the layers of earth!

Many bones were already processed by man. This suggests that mammoth bones and tusks have long been used by people for their needs.

Nowadays, mammoth tusk is a valuable material for making expensive and beautiful figurines, caskets, chess, beautiful bracelets, combs and other souvenirs and jewelry. Tusk-encrusted weapons are also highly prized by collectors.

Why mammoths became extinct

Name two reasons for the disappearance of mammoths.

• The first is that they were simply exterminated by people for food.
• The second is global cooling. The vegetation that the mammoths ate died out and, accordingly, the animals died.

It has not yet been possible to establish the exact reasons, so other, sometimes exotic versions are being put forward.

The remains of some mammoths are so well preserved that many museums have recreated life-size stuffed animals. For example, the Zoological Museum of the Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences has one of these unique exhibits. It seems that he is about to raise a huge paw and budge.

Every year, scientists find more and more bones, tusks and teeth of mammoths in the glaciers of Northern Europe and Siberia. Such finds do not allow discussions about the reasons for the extinction of these ancient mammals to cool down.


Experts put forward many different hypotheses, but so far none of them has been confirmed. What could have led to their death? Why did the mammoth fauna die out?

When did mammoths live?

It is well known that the first mammoths appeared in the Pliocene era (about 5.3 million years ago) and existed until about the 7th millennium BC. Most of them had dimensions similar to those of modern elephants, but among the animals there were both rather large species, reaching a height of 5 meters, and small ones, growing up to only 2 meters.

The main differences between mammoths and elephants were the presence of a dense hairline and long, curved tusks, which helped to get food in winter.

The main ranges of mammoths were North America, Africa, Europe and Asia. Most often, researchers find only their individual bones, but in Siberia and Alaska there are cases of discovery of whole corpses that have managed to survive well to this day in permafrost conditions.

When did mammoths become extinct?

Most of the mammoths died about 10,000 years ago, when the so-called Vistula Ice Age reigned on the globe. It was the last in a series of ice ages and ended around 9600 BC.


It is noteworthy that in addition to mammoths, 34 more genera of mammals disappeared at the same time, including the bighorn deer and the woolly rhinoceros. The extinction was accompanied by climate change and the transformation of tundra-steppes into modern forest-tundra and marshy-tundra biotas.

Why did mammoths become extinct?

Scientists have been arguing about the reasons for the extinction of mammoths for many decades. A variety of versions are put forward, even quite exotic ones, such as the fall of a comet and a large-scale epidemic.

Most of the assumptions are not supported by other specialists, but today there are at least two hypotheses that may well explain the disappearance of animals. It is believed that mammoths could have become victims of Upper Paleolithic hunters or died as a result of a sharp climate change.

Extermination of mammoths by hunters

The version about hunters was proposed by the British naturalist Alfred Wallace at the end of the 19th century. The scientist considered that it was the hunt for mammoths that caused their complete extermination. Wallace's conclusions were based on the discovery of an ancient human site that contained a huge accumulation of mammalian bones.

It is believed that about 32 thousand years ago people settled in the north of Eurasia, and 15 thousand years ago they reached North America and began to actively hunt for food. Of course, they could not completely destroy the entire species, but global warming “helped” them in this, which came after the ice age and led to a reduction in the mammoth fauna.

Mammoth extinction due to climate change

Proponents of the hypothesis believe that the role of man in the extinction of mammoths is greatly overestimated. In their opinion, the mass extinction began long before the appearance of people in the territories inhabited by mammals. In addition, in addition to mammoths, many other animals died 10 thousand years ago, which ancient people did not hunt.

Thus, human intervention plays a secondary role, and global warming and the reduction of food used by mammoths for food are called the main cause of extinction.

The latest study conducted by scientists at the California Institute in 2012 showed that over the past 30 thousand years of the existence of mammoths, their number has changed repeatedly. With the onset of heat about 40 thousand years ago, the population increased, and with the advent of cold weather 25 thousand years ago, it decreased.


In connection with the cooling, most of the animals were forced to migrate from Northern Siberia to the warmer southern regions, but even there the grassy steppes were soon replaced by forests. As a result, due to lack of nutrition, the mammoth fauna was significantly reduced, and subsequently completely disappeared from the face of the Earth.

Niramin - Jun 5th, 2016

Elephants and mammoths share a common progenitor, the paleomastodon, which inhabited Africa about 36 million years ago. Perhaps that is why elephants and mammoths have many similarities.

For 5 million years, mammoths lived quietly on many continents, disappearing from the face of the Earth only 10-12 thousand years ago. Their remains are found not only in Eurasia, but also in North and South America.

Elephants, distant relatives of mammoths, are the remains of a large proboscis family that inhabited our planet in the distant past. These huge animals live in Africa, South and Southeast Asia.

Outwardly, African and Indian elephants look very similar. However, the huge representatives of the African shrouds are much larger than their Asian relatives. The maximum weight of an African elephant reaches more than 7 tons, and its height at the withers is about 4 meters. At the same time, an Indian elephant can have a maximum weight of about 5 tons, and up to 3 meters at the withers. The shaggy relatives of modern elephants, mammoths, were much larger. Their growth at the withers reached 5 meters, the huge tusks twisted in the form of a spiral were the same length. With the help of tusks, mammoths were able to resist predators, and thick long wool protected these animals from low temperatures during the Ice Age. Until now, scientists are looking for the cause of the mass extinction of mammoths. Some consider the ancient man guilty, who intensively exterminated these animals, others are inclined to the version of the emergence of a new ice age caused by the fall of a South American meteorite.

Like modern elephants, mammoths ate plant foods. But unlike their modern relatives, mammoths had to eat sparse tundra vegetation. Many paleontologists claim that baby mammoths also ate their parents' droppings to replenish the stomach with bacteria necessary for normal digestion.

Elephants eat more diversely than their long-extinct relatives. As food, they use leaves, branches, shoots, fruits, bark and roots of trees, as well as shrubs.

And if the ancient man used the mammoth as an object of hunting, eating his meat and later dressing his skins, then the locals learned to tame the current elephants and use them as household helpers. This is especially true of Indian elephants, which are easy to train and become attached to their master for a long time.

Mammoths and elephants - see pictures and photos:

Proboscis evolution.

Photo: African elephant.

Photo: Indian elephant.

Mammoth, African elephant and man.

Mammoth.

It is still unclear why mammoths became extinct. And although they survived on the Arctic island of Wrangel until the time of the construction of the Egyptian pyramids, there is no written evidence about the reasons for the disappearance of mammoths from our planet.

If we discard assumptions about the fall of meteorites, volcanic eruptions and other natural disasters, the main causes will be climate and people.

In 2008, an unusual accumulation of bones of mammoths and other animals was discovered, which could not have appeared as a result of natural processes, such as predation by predators or the death of animals. These were the skeletal remains of at least 26 mammoths, and the bones were sorted by species.

Apparently, for a long time people kept the most interesting bones for them, some of which bear traces of tools. And there was no shortage of hunting weapons among people at the end of the Ice Age.

How were the parts of the carcasses delivered to the camps? And Belgian archeozoologists have an answer to this: they could transport meat and tusks from the butchering place on dogs.

Mammoths became extinct about 10,000 years ago during the last Ice Age. Some experts do not rule out that the climate was changed by man ... destroying mammoths and other northern giants. With the disappearance of large mammals that produce large amounts of methane, the level of this greenhouse gas in the atmosphere should have decreased by about 200 units. This led to a cooling of 9-12 ° C about 14 thousand years ago.

Mammoths reached a height of 5.5 meters and a body weight of 10-12 tons. Thus, these giants were twice as heavy as the largest modern land mammals - African elephants.

In Siberia and Alaska, there are known cases of finding the corpses of mammoths, preserved due to their stay in the thickness of permafrost. Therefore, scientists do not deal with individual fossils or several bones of skeletons, but can even study the blood, muscles, hair of these animals and also determine what they ate.

Mammoths had a massive body, long hair and long curved tusks; the latter could serve the mammoth for getting food in winter from under the snow. mammoth skeleton:

According to the structure of the skeleton, the mammoth bears a significant resemblance to the living Indian elephant. Huge mammoth tusks, up to 4 m in length, weighing up to 100 kg, were located in the upper jaw, exposed forward, bent upward and diverged to the sides. Mammoth and mastodon - another extinct gigantic proboscis mammal:

Interestingly, as abrasion progressed, the teeth of a mammoth (like those of modern elephants) changed to new ones, and such a change could take place up to 6 times during a lifetime. Mammoth monument in Salekhard:

The most famous type of mammoth is the woolly mammoth (lat. Mammuthus primigenius). It appeared on the territory of Siberia 200-300 thousand years ago, from where it spread to Europe and North America.

The woolly mammoth, the most exotic animal of the Ice Age, is its symbol. Real giants, mammoths at the withers reached 3.5 m and weighed 4-6 tons. Mammoths were protected from the cold by thick long hair with a developed undercoat, which was more than a meter long on the shoulders, hips and sides, as well as a layer of fat up to 9 cm thick. 12-13 thousand years ago, mammoths lived throughout Northern Eurasia and a significant part of North America . Due to the warming of the climate, the habitats of mammoths - the tundra-steppes - have decreased. Mammoths migrated to the north of the mainland and for the last 9-10 thousand years lived on a narrow strip of land along the Arctic coast of Eurasia, which is now mostly flooded by the sea. The last mammoths lived on Wrangel Island, where they died out about 3,500 years ago.

In winter, the coarse wool of the mammoth consisted of hair 90 cm long. An additional thermal insulation was a layer of fat about 10 cm thick.

Mammoths are herbivores, fed mainly on herbaceous plants (cereals, sedges, herbs), small shrubs (dwarf birches, willows), tree shoots and moss. In winter, in order to feed themselves, they raked the snow with their forelimbs and extremely developed upper incisors-tusks in search of food, the length of which in large males was more than 4 meters, and they weighed about 100 kg. Mammoth teeth were well adapted for grinding coarse food. Each of the 4 teeth of a mammoth changed five times during its life. On the day, the mammoth ate 200-300 kg of vegetation, that is, he had to eat 18-20 hours a day and move all the time in search of new pastures.

It is assumed that living mammoths were painted black or dark brown. Since they had small ears and short trunks (compared to modern elephants), the woolly mammoth was adapted to life in cold climates.

Thanks to mammoths, the rulers of the northern circumpolar steppes and tundra, ancient man survived in harsh conditions: they gave him food and clothing, housing, sheltered him from the cold. So, mammoth meat, subcutaneous and abdominal fat were used for food; for clothes - skins, veins, wool; for the manufacture of dwellings, tools, hunting equipment and equipment and handicrafts - tusks and bones.

During the Ice Age, the woolly mammoth was the largest animal in the Eurasian expanse.

It is assumed that woolly mammoths lived in groups of 2-9 individuals and were led by their older females.

The lifespan of mammoths was about the same as that of modern elephants, i.e. no more than 60-65 years.

“A mammoth by its liking is a meek and peaceful animal, and affectionate towards people. When meeting with a person, the mammoth not only does not attack him, but even clings and fawns over the person ”(from the notes of the Tobolsk local historian P. Gorodtsov, XIX century).

The largest number of mammoth bones are found in Siberia. Giant Mammoth Cemetery - New Siberian Islands. In the last century, up to 20 tons of elephant tusks were mined there annually. Monument to mammoths in Khanty-Mansiysk:

In Yakutia, there is an auction where you can buy the remains of mammoths. The approximate price of a kilogram of mammoth tusk is $200.

Unique finds.

mammoth adams

The world's first mammoth was found in 1799 in the lower reaches of the Lena River by hunter O. Shumakhov, who reached the delta of the Lena River in search of mammoth tusks. A huge block of frozen earth and ice, where he found a mammoth tusk, completely thawed only in the summer of 1804. In 1806, M. Adams, an assistant professor of zoology at the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, learned about the find, who was passing through Yakutsk. Having gone to the place, he discovered the skeleton of a mammoth, eaten by wild animals and dogs. The skin was preserved on the mammoth's head, one ear, dried eyes and brain also survived, and on the side on which he lay there was skin with thick long hair. Thanks to the selfless efforts of the zoologist, the skeleton was brought to St. Petersburg in the same year. So, in 1808, for the first time in the world, a complete skeleton of a mammoth, mammoth Adams, was mounted. Currently, he, like the baby mammoth Dima, is on display at the Museum of the Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg.

In 1970, on the left bank of the Berelekh River, the left tributary of the Indigirka River (90 km northwest of the village of Chokurdakh of the Allaikhov Ulus), a huge accumulation of bone remains was found that belonged to about 160 mammoths that lived 13 thousand years ago. Nearby was the dwelling of ancient hunters. In terms of quantity and quality of preserved fragments of mammoth bodies, the Berelekh cemetery is the largest in the world. It testifies to the mass death of animals that have weakened and fallen into a snow drift.

Scientists have tried to establish the cause of the death of a huge number of mammoths on the Berelekh River. During these works, a frozen hind leg of a medium-sized adult mammoth 170 cm long was found. For many thousands of years, the leg was mummified, but it was preserved quite well - along with the skin and wool, individual strands of which reached a length of 120 cm. The absolute age of the leg of the Berelekh mammoth was determined approximately at 13 thousand years. The age of other mammoth bones found, which were dated later, ranged from 14 to 12 thousand years. The remains of other animals were also found at the burial. For example, next to the frozen leg of a mammoth, the frozen and mummified corpses of an ancient wolverine and a white partridge, who lived in the same era as mammoths, were found. The bones of other animals, woolly rhinoceros, ancient horse, bison, musk ox, reindeer, hare, wolf, that lived in the area of ​​the Berelekh locality in the Ice Age, were relatively few - less than 1%. Mammoth bones accounted for more than 99.3% of all finds.

Currently, paleontological materials from the Berelekhsky cemetery are stored at the Institute of Geology of Diamond and Precious Metals of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Yakutsk.

Shandrin mammoth

In 1971, on the right bank of the Shandrin River, which flows into a channel of the Indigirka River delta, D. Kuzmin discovered the skeleton of a mammoth that lived 41,000 years ago. Inside the skeleton was a frozen lump of innards. In the gastrointestinal tract, plant remains were found, consisting of herbs, twigs, shrubs, seeds. So, thanks to this, one of the five unique remains of the contents of the gastrointestinal tract of mammoths (section size 70x35 cm) managed to find out the diet of the animal. The mammoth was a large male 60 years old and apparently died of starost and physical exhaustion. The skeleton of the Shandra mammoth is kept at the Institute of History and Philosophy of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Mammoth Dima

In 1977, a well-preserved 7-8-month-old mammoth cub was discovered in the Kolyma River basin. It was a touching and sad sight for the miners who discovered the baby mammoth Dima (so he was named after the spring of the same name, in the decay of which he was found): he was lying on his side with mournfully outstretched legs, with closed basins and a slightly crumpled trunk.

The find immediately became a worldwide sensation due to the excellent state of preservation and the possible cause of death of the baby mammoth. The poet Stepan Shchipachev composed a touching poem about a mammoth baby who has fallen behind his mammoth mother, and an animated film about the unfortunate mammoth was made.

Yukagir mammoth

In 2002, near the Muksunuokha River, 30 km from the village of Yukagir, schoolchildren Innokenty and Grigory Gorokhov found the head of a male mammoth. In 2003 - 2004 the rest of the corpse was excavated. The most well-preserved head is with tusks, with most of the skin, left ear and eye socket, as well as the left front leg, consisting of a forearm and with muscles and tendons. Of the remaining parts, cervical and thoracic vertebrae, part of the ribs, shoulder blades, the right humerus, part of the entrails, and wool were found. According to radiocarbon analysis, the mammoth lived 18 thousand years ago. A male about 3 m tall at the withers and weighing 4-5 tons died at the age of 40-50 years (for comparison: the average life expectancy of modern elephants is 60-70 years), probably after falling into a pit. At present, everyone can see the mammoth head model at the Mammoth Museum of the Federal State Scientific Institution "Institute of Applied Ecology of the North" in Yakutsk.

1. Mammoths are the largest mammals that became extinct 10 thousand years ago. Mammoths are members of the elephant family.

Mammoths reached a height of 5.5 meters and a body weight of 10-12 tons. Thus, these giants were twice as heavy as the largest modern land mammals - African elephants.

2. The genus of mammoths included many species. A dozen different types of mammoth lived in North America and Eurasia during the Pleistocene era, including the steppe mammoth, the Columbus mammoth, the pygmy mammoth, and others. However, none of these species was as widespread as the woolly mammoth.

3. The Russian word "Mammoth" comes from the Mansi "Mang Ont" (earthen horn) - the name, logically, of a fossil tusk. And when the animal was classified, the name from the Russian language fell into all others (for example, the Latin "Mammuthus" and the English "Mammoth").

4. Mammoths died out about 10 thousand years ago during the last Ice Age. Some experts do not rule out that humans have changed the climate, destroying mammoths and other northern giants.

5. With the disappearance of large mammals that produce large amounts of methane, the level of this greenhouse gas in the atmosphere should have decreased by about 200 units. This led to a cooling of 9-12°C about 14 thousand years ago.

6. Mammoths had a massive body, long hair and long curved tusks; the latter could serve the mammoth for getting food in winter from under the snow.

7. Huge tusks in large males reached 4 meters in length. Such large tusks most likely characterized sexual attractiveness: males with longer, curved and impressive tusks were able to mate with more females during the breeding season.

8. Also, tusks may have been used defensively to drive away hungry saber-toothed tigers, although there is no direct fossil evidence to support this theory.

9. The gigantic size of the mammoth made it a particularly desirable prey for primitive hunters. Thick woolen hides provided warmth in cold times, and tasty fatty meats were an indispensable source of food.

10. There is a suggestion that the patience, planning and cooperation required to capture mammoths has become a key factor in the development of human civilization!

woolly mammoth

11. The most famous type of mammoth is the woolly mammoth. It appeared on the territory of Siberia 200-300 thousand years ago, from where it spread to Europe and North America.

12. During the Ice Age, the woolly mammoth was the largest animal in the Eurasian expanses.

13. It is assumed that living mammoths were painted black or dark brown. Since they had small ears and short trunks (compared to modern elephants), the woolly mammoth was adapted to life in cold climates.

14. In Siberia and Alaska, there are known cases of finding whole corpses of mammoths, preserved due to their stay in the thickness of permafrost.

15. As a result, scientists do not deal with individual fossils or several bones of skeletons, but can even study the blood, muscles, hair of these animals and also determine what they ate.

Image of a mammoth in an ancient cave

16. From 30,000 to 12,000 years ago, the mammoth was one of the most popular objects of Neolithic artists, who depicted images of this shaggy beast on the walls of numerous caves in Western Europe.

17. Perhaps primitive paintings were intended as totems (that is, early people believed that the depiction of a mammoth in cave paintings made it easier to capture him in real life).

18. Also, the drawings could serve as objects of worship or talented primitive artists were simply bored on a cold, rainy day.

19. In 2008, an unusual accumulation of bones of mammoths and other animals was discovered, which could not have appeared as a result of natural processes, for example, hunting by predators or the death of animals. These were the skeletal remains of at least 26 mammoths, and the bones were sorted by species.

20. Apparently, for a long time people kept the most interesting bones for them, some of which bear traces of tools. And there was no shortage of hunting weapons among people at the end of the Ice Age.

21. How did ancient people deliver parts of mammoth carcasses to the sites? Belgian archaeologists have an answer to this: they could transport meat and tusks from the place of butchering carcasses on dogs.

22. In winter, the coarse wool of a mammoth consisted of hair 90 centimeters long.

23. An additional thermal insulation for mammoths was a layer of fat about 10 centimeters thick.

Columbian mammoth

24. According to the structure of the skeleton, the mammoth bears a significant resemblance to the living Indian elephant. Huge mammoth tusks, up to 4 meters in length, weighing up to 100 kilograms, were located in the upper jaw, pushed forward, bent upwards and diverged to the sides.

25. As abrasion, the teeth of a mammoth (like that of modern elephants) changed to new ones, and such a change could take place up to 6 times during a lifetime.

26. Woolly mammoths began to die out 10 thousand years BC, but the population on Wrangel Island disappeared only 4000 years ago (At that time, the Palace of Knossos was being built on Crete, the Sumerians were living out their last days and 400-500 years had passed since the Great Sphinx and Pyramid of Cheops).

27. It is assumed that woolly mammoths lived in groups of 2-9 individuals and were led by their older females.

28. The life expectancy of mammoths was about the same as that of modern elephants, i.e. 60–65 years.

29. Already in ancient times, man figured out what and how to use to his advantage. Even at home, he built from the bones of huge animals.

30. The hump on the back of a mammoth is not the result of vertebral processes. In it, animals accumulated powerful reserves of fat, like modern camels.

Sungari mammoth

31. The Sungari mammoth was the largest of all mammoth species. Some individuals of the Sungari mammoth living in Northern China reached a mass of about 13 tons (compared to such giants, a 5-7 tons woolly mammoth seemed short).

32. The most recent mammoths, living 4000 years ago, were also the smallest, since the so-called phenomenon took place. island dwarfism, when the size of animals isolated in a small area decreases radically over time due to lack of food. The height at the withers of mammoths from Wrangel Island did not exceed 1.8 meters.

Mammoths in the museum

33. Mammoths grazed in herds of 15 animals and dispersed during the day, and returned at night, gathered together and arranged a common overnight stay.

34. They lived near water sources, surrounded by reeds, fed on branches and bushes. 350 kilograms of grass per day is an approximate norm for one mammoth.

35. From mosquitoes (in the hot months of summer), animals hid in the tundra, and in autumn they returned to the rivers in more southern regions.

36. A mammoth monument was erected in Salekhard.

37. The largest number of mammoth bones are found in Siberia.

38. Giant cemetery of mammoths - New Siberian Islands. In the last century, up to 20 tons of elephant tusks were mined there annually.

pygmy mammoth

39. In Yakutia there is an auction where you can buy the remains of mammoths. The approximate price of a kilogram of mammoth tusk is $200.

40. Fishing for mammoth ivory is often carried out illegally by black diggers. The method of extracting the bones from the soil is to wash out the soil with a powerful jet of water using a fire pump. The extraction of tusks is illegal in two respects. Firstly, from the point of view of the legislation of the Russian Federation, tusks are minerals that are the property of the state, and diggers sell them for personal purposes. Secondly, along with the soil, the flow of water destroys the tissues of animals preserved in the permafrost, which are of great value to science.

imperial mammoth

41. In the western hemisphere, the palm belonged to the imperial mammoth, the males of this species weighed more than 10 tons.

42. There is also a monument to mammoths in Khanty-Mansiysk.

43. Items made from mammoth tusks are much cheaper than items made from the tusk of modern elephants, due to the illegal hunting of the latter and relatively large fossil reserves in Western Siberia.

44. Now, “ivory” refers specifically to mammoth ivory (with the exception of items that were made when elephant hunting was not yet banned).

45. The evolutionary branches of the Indian elephant and mammoths diverged 4 million years ago, and with the African elephant - 6 million, thus, the Indian elephant is genetically closer to the mammoth.

steppe mammoths

46. ​​The ancestor of the woolly mammoth - the steppe mammoth exceeded its descendant in size: it had a height at the withers of 4.7 meters, when the height of the woolly mammoth did not exceed 4. The steppe mammoth lived on the territory of the Southern Urals, modern Kazakhstan, the Stavropol Territory and the Krasnodar Territory; died out with the onset of the ice age.

47. Even today, 10,000 years after the last ice age, the northern regions of Canada, Alaska and Siberia have a very cold climate, keeping numerous mammoth bodies practically intact.

48. Identification and extraction of giant corpses from blocks of ice is a fairly simple task, it is much more difficult to keep the remains at room temperature.

49. Since mammoths became extinct relatively recently, and modern elephants are their closest relatives, scientists are able to collect mammoth DNA and incubate it in a female elephant (a process known as “de-extinction”).

50. Researchers recently announced that they have almost completely decoded the genomes of two 40,000-year-old specimens. Unfortunately or fortunately, the same trick won't work with dinosaurs, as DNA doesn't hold up as well for tens of millions of years.