page_title: Steppe mammoth
section_title: Description
hierarchical_section_title: Steppe mammoth / Description
caption_attribution_description: English: Mammuthus trogontherii, Steppe Mammoth. Русский: Mammuthus trogontherii - степной мамонт или трогонтериевый слон.
context_page_description: The steppe mammoth is an extinct species of Elephantidae that ranged over most of northern Eurasia during the late Early and Middle Pleistocene, approximately 1.7 million-200,000 years ago. It evolved in Siberia during the Early Pleistocene from Mammuthus meridionalis. It was the first stage in the evolution of the steppe and tundra elephants and the ancestor of the woolly mammoth and Columbian mammoth of the later Pleistocene. Populations of steppe mammoth may have persisted in northern China and Mongolia as recently as 33,000 years ago.
context_section_description: The steppe mammoth had a short skull compared to M. meridionalis as well as a smaller jaw. The males had spiral tusks with a recurved tip that could grow as long as 4.9 metres (16 ft) in old bulls; females on the other side had thinner and slightly curved tusks.
  With several individuals reaching 4 m (13.1 ft) tall at the shoulders, it is smaller than the largest proboscideans ever to have lived (Palaeoloxodon namadicus reached 22 tonnes and shoulder heights of 5.2 metres (17.1 ft)), but was larger than other mammoths. A skeleton mounted on the Azov Museum reaches 4.5 m (14.8 ft) at the shoulder, though this figure might be overestimated because the vertebrae have been placed between the tips of the shoulder blades. Another individual represented by a single humerus 1.46 m (4.8 ft) long found in Mosbach Sande, Germany, is estimated to have an in-the-flesh shoulder height of 4.5 m (14.8 ft), weighed between 9–10 metric tons (9.9–11.0 short tons) and might be the largest mammoth found yet. Another estimate gives a shoulder height of 3.89–4.5 m (12.8–14.8 ft) and a weight of 10.4–14.3 metric tons (11.5–15.8 short tons) for the species.
caption: Restoration
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