mammoth

mammoth, name for several large prehistoric elephants of the extinct genus Mammuthus, which ranged over Eurasia and North America in the Pleistocene epoch. The shoulder height of the Siberian, or woolly, mammoth, which roamed throughout the Northern Hemisphere, was about 9 ft (2.7 m), and that of the imperial mammoth of the North American Great Plains was up to 13 1-2 ft (4.1 m). Mammoths were covered by a long, shaggy, black outer coat and a dense, woolly undercoat. They had complex, many-ridged molar teeth; long, slender upward-curved tusks; and a long trunk. Ivory hunters have collected their tusks for centuries in Siberia, where some 50,000 have been discovered; it is from these and from the drawings left by the Cro-Magnon people in the caves of S France that the mammoth's appearance is known. Paleolithic (Old Stone Age) people hunted mammoths, as is evidenced by remains of the animals found together with tools, and may have contributed to their extinction. Mammoths are classified in the phylum Chordata, subphylum Vertebrata, class Mammalia, order Proboscidea, family Elephantidae.

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mammoth

Any of several species (genus Mammuthus) of extinct elephants whose fossils have been found in Pleistocene deposits (beginning 1.8 million years ago) on every continent except Australia and South America. The woolly, Northern, or Siberian mammoth (M. primigenius) is the best-known species because the Siberian permafrost preserved numerous carcasses intact. Most species were about the size of modern elephants; some were much smaller. The North American imperial mammoth (M. imperator) grew to a shoulder height of 14 ft (4 m). Many species had a short, woolly undercoat and a long, coarse outer coat. Mammoths had a high, domelike skull and small ears. Their long, downward-pointing tusks sometimes curved over each other. Cave paintings show them traveling in herds. Mammoths survived until about 10,000 years ago; hunting by humans may have been a cause of their extinction. See also mastodon.