Woolly Mammoth

*Mammuthus primigenius*

Joe Tucciarone Artwork

The **woolly mammoth** was a species of mammoth which lived from the Middle Pleistocene to the Early Holocene. It was large and covered with a shaggy exterior of long dark brown hair. It may have become extinct of climate change or hunting by prehistoric humans. It had very long, loopy tusks. It was one of the most famous ice age animals. Bodies have been found frozen well-preserved in ice or in tar pits. They were preyed upon by saber-toothed cats or any other carnivore of the ice age. Amazing are the findings of frozen mammoths, with preserved skin, meat, muscles and organs. There was even blood coming out of the frozen mammoths. The flight kept everything like food in the freezer. There were still hairs on the frozen mammoths. DNA was obtained from the blood and flesh of the mammoth, in the future it may be possible to clone mammoths.

More generally, a mammoth is any species of the extinct genus *Mammuthus*. Proboscideans are members of Elephantidae, the family of elephants and mammoths, and close relatives of modern elephants. They were often equipped with long curved tusks and, in northern species, a covering of long hair. They lived from the Pliocene Epoch from around 4.8 million into the Pleistocene at about 4,500 years ago. The word *mammoth* comes from the Russian мамонт *mamont* , probably in turn from the Vogul (Mansi) language, *mang ont*, meaning "earth horn".

An extinct class of elephants, mammoths belonged to a diverse and widespread group of mammals known as the proboscideans, characterized by long, trunk-like noses. Mammoths first appeared in Africa early in the Pleistocene Epoch (the last 1.6 million years of the Earth’s history) and later migrated to Europe, Siberia, and across to North America. Proboscideans were very widespread. Their fossil remains can be found on every continent except Australia and South America.

The genus *Mammuthus* includes a number of several species, of which the best known is the woolly mammoth.There are also the steppe mammoth, imperial mammoth, dwarf mammoths, Columbian mammoth, Songhua river mammoth and Wrangel islands woolly mammoth.

Most mammoths became extinct around 10,000 years ago, surviving on Siberia’s Wrangel Island longer than anywhere else on earth. Radiocarbon dating indicates that a dwarf population existed there until between 7000 and 3,700 years ago.

## Taxonomy

Remains of various extinct elephants were known by Europeans for centuries, but were generally interpreted, based on biblical accounts, as the remains of legendary creatures such as behemoths or giants. They were thought to be remains of modern elephants that had been brought to Europe during the Roman Republic, for example the war elephants of Hannibal and Pyrrhus of Epirus, or animals that had wandered north. The first woolly mammoth remains studied by European scientists were examined by Hans Sloane in 1728 and consisted of fossilised teeth and tusks from Siberia. Sloane was the first to recognise that the remains belonged to elephants. Sloane turned to another biblical explanation for the presence of elephants in the Arctic, asserting that they had been buried during the Great Flood, and that Siberia had previously been tropical before a drastic climate change. Others interpreted Sloane's conclusion slightly differently, arguing the flood had carried elephants from the tropics to the Arctic. Sloane's paper was based on travellers' descriptions and a few scattered bones collected in Siberia and Britain. He discussed the question of whether or not the remains were from elephants, but drew no conclusions. In 1738, the German zoologist Johann Philipp Breyne argued that mammoth fossils represented some kind of elephant. He could not explain why a tropical animal would be found in such a cold area as Siberia, and suggested that they might have been transported there by the Great Flood.

In 1796, French biologist Georges Cuvier was the first to identify the woolly mammoth remains not as modern elephants transported to the Arctic, but as an entirely new species. He argued this species had gone extinct and no longer existed, a concept that was not widely accepted at the time. Following Cuvier's identification, German naturalist Johann Friedrich Blumenbach gave the woolly mammoth its scientific name, *Elephas primigenius*, in 1799, placing it in the same genus as the Asian elephant. This name is Latin for "the first-born elephant". Cuvier coined the name *Elephas mammonteus* a few months later, but the former name was subsequently used. In 1828, the British naturalist Joshua Brookes used the name *Mammuthus borealis* for woolly mammoth fossils in his collection that he put up for sale, thereby coining a new genus name.

Where and how the word "mammoth" originated is unclear. According to the *Oxford English Dictionary*, it comes from an old Vogul word *mēmoŋt*, "earth-horn". It may be a version of *mehemot*, the Arabic version of the biblical word "behemoth". Another possible origin is Estonian, where *maa* means "earth", and *mutt* means "mole". The word was first used in Europe during the early 17th century, when referring to *maimanto* tusks discovered in Siberia. American president Thomas Jefferson, who had a keen interest in palaeontology, was partially responsible for transforming the word "mammoth" from a noun describing the prehistoric elephant to an adjective describing anything of surprisingly large size. The first recorded use of the word as an adjective was in a description of a wheel of cheese (the "Cheshire Mammoth Cheese") given to Jefferson in 1802.

By the early 20th century, the taxonomy of extinct elephants was complex. In 1942, American palaeontologist Henry Fairfield Osborn's posthumous monograph on the Proboscidea was published, wherein he used various taxon names that had previously been proposed for mammoth species, including replacing *Mammuthus* with *Mammonteus*, as he believed the former name to be invalidly published. Mammoth taxonomy was simplified by various researchers from the 1970s onwards, all species were retained in the genus *Mammuthus*, and many proposed differences between species were instead interpreted as intraspecific variation. Osborn chose two molars (found in Siberia and Osterode) from Blumenbach's collection at Göttingen University as the lectotype specimens for the woolly mammoth, since holotype designation was not practised in Blumenbach's time. Russian palaeontologist Vera Gromova further proposed the former should be considered the lectotype with the latter as paralectotype. Both molars were thought lost by the 1980s, and the more complete "Taimyr mammoth" found in Siberia in 1948 was therefore proposed as the neotype specimen in 1990. Resolutions to historical issues about the validity of the genus name *Mammuthus* and the type species designation of *E. primigenius* were also proposed. The paralectotype molar (specimen GZG.V.010.018) has since been located in the Göttingen University collection, identified by comparing it with Osborn's illustration of a cast.

### Evolution

The earliest known proboscideans, the clade which contains elephants, existed about 55 million years ago around the Tethys Sea. The closest known relatives of the Proboscidea are the sirenians and the hyraxes. The family Elephantidae existed six million years ago in Africa and includes the modern elephants and the mammoths. Among many now extinct clades, the mastodon is only a distant relative of the mammoths, and part of the separate Mammutidae family, which diverged 25 million years before the mammoths evolved.[12] The following cladogram shows the placement of the genus Mammuthus among other proboscideans, based on hyoid characteristics:

In 2005, researchers assembled a complete mitochondrial genome profile of the woolly mammoth, which allowed them to trace the close evolutionary relationship between mammoths and Asian elephants, *Elephas maximus*.[14] African elephants, *Loxodonta africana*, branched away from this clade around 6 million years ago, close to the time of the similar split between chimpanzees and humans. Before the publication of the Neanderthal genome, many researchers expected the first fully sequenced nuclear genome of an extinct species would be that of the mammoth.[15] A 2010 study confirmed these relationships, and suggested the mammoth and Asian elephant lineages diverged 5.8–7.8 million years ago, while African elephants diverged from an earlier common ancestor 6.6–8.8 million years ago.[16] In 2008, much of the woolly mammoth's chromosomal DNA was mapped. The analysis showed that the woolly mammoth and the African elephant are 98.55% to 99.4% identical.[17] The team mapped the woolly mammoth's nuclear genome sequence by extracting DNA from the hair follicles of both a 20,000-year-old mammoth retrieved from permafrost, and another that died 60,000 years ago.[18] In 2012, proteins were confidently identified for the first time, collected from a 43.000 old woolly mammoth.

Since many remains of each species of mammoth are known from several localities, it is possible to reconstruct the evolutionary history of the genus through morphological studies. Mammoth species can be identified from the number of enamel ridges on their molars; primitive species had few ridges, and the number increased gradually as new species evolved and replaced the preceding ones. The crowns of the teeth lengthened and the skulls became taller to accommodate this. At the same time, the skulls became shorter from front to back to minimise the weight.[20] These adaptations were acquired gradually as mammoths turned to more abrasive food items.

The first known members of the genus Mammuthus are the African species *M. subplanifrons* from the Pliocene, and *M. africanavus* from the Pleistocene. The former is thought to be the ancestor of later forms. Mammoths entered Europe around 3 million years ago. The earliest type known from there has been named *M. rumanus*, which spread across Europe and China. Only its molars are known, which show that it had 8–10 enamel ridges. A population evolved 12–14 ridges, splitting off from and replacing the earlier type, becoming *M. meridionalis*. In turn, this species was replaced by the steppe mammoth, *M. trogontherii*, with 18–20 ridges, which evolved in eastern Asia c. 1 million years ago. Mammoths derived from *M. trogontherii* evolved molars with 26 ridges 200,000 years ago in Siberia and became the woolly mammoth, *M. primigenius*.[20] The Columbian mammoth, *M. columbi*, evolved from a population of *M. trogontherii* that had entered North America. A 2011 genetic study showed that two examined specimens of the Columbian mammoth were grouped within a subclade of woolly mammoths. This suggests that the two populations interbred and produced fertile offspring. A North American form known as *M. jeffersonii* may be a hybrid between the two species.[22]

Individuals and populations showing transitional morphologies between each of the mammoth species are known, and primitive and derived species coexisted as well until the former disappeared. The different species and their intermediate forms can therefore be termed "chronospecies". Many intermediate subspecies have also been proposed, but their validity is uncertain; depending on author, they are either considered primitive forms of an advanced species or advanced forms of a primitive species. Regional and intermediate subspecies such as *M. p. primigenius*, *M. p. jatzkovi*, *M. p. sibiricus*, and *M. p. fraasi* have been proposed. The St. Paul Island and Wrangel Island populations were described as dwarf varieties, much smaller than the mainland woolly mammoth; the Wrangel Island population was also proposed to be a new subspecies, *M. p. vrangeliensis*.[24][25] The Wrangel mammoths were isolated for 5,000 years, but only experienced a slight loss of genetic variation.

## Description

Most mammoths became extinct around 10,000 years ago, surviving on Siberia’s Wrangel Island longer than anywhere else on earth. Radiocarbon dating indicates that a dwarf population existed there until between 7000 and 3,700 years ago.

## Cultural Significance

The woolly mammoth has been culturally significant long after its extinction. Indigenous people of Siberia have found what are known as woolly mammoth remains, collecting them for the ivory trade. The woolly mammoth has also left its imprint in some native siberian cultures. The Yukaghir languages have words refering to the mammoth. Southern Yukaghir **холҕут** (qolhut) and Northern Yukaghir **холҕо** (qolho) both mean mammoth and come from a reconstructed Proto-Yukaghir \*qolq-. The native Yukaghir shamanist religion also mention the mammoth as a guardian spirit of certain shamans. Shamans assisted by the spirit are regarde as the most powerful shamans. Woolly mammoth tusks have also been traded in Asia long before Europeans became acquainted with them. Güyük, the 13th-Century Khan of the Mongols, is reputed to have sat on a throne made of mammoth ivory. The indigenous people of North America used mammoth ivory for bones for tools and art. In Siberia, Native American natives had "myths of observations" explaning the remains of woolly mammoths and other elephants; the Bering Strait Inupiat believed the bones came from burrowing creatures, while other people associated them with primordial giants or "giant beasts". Observers have interperated lengends of several Native American peoples as containing folk memory of extinct elephants, though scholars are skeptical that folk memory could survive such a long time.

## Appearance in other media

### *Jurassic Park*

The bones of a Woolly Mammoth appears on a tray being wheeled across the room in the TV series Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous.