Mammoth

* Real Life
* Series

Mammoths are extinct animals that appear in the Jungle Bunch Universe.

## Description

The appearance of the woolly mammoth is probably the best known of any prehistoric animal due to the many frozen specimens with preserved soft tissue and depictions by contemporary humans in their art. Fully grown males reached shoulder heights between 2.7 and 3.4 m (8.9 and 11.2 ft) and weighed up to 6 tonnes (6.6 short tons). This is almost as large as extant male African elephants, which commonly reach a shoulder height of 3–3.4 m (9.8–11.2 ft), and is less than the size of the earlier mammoth species M. meridionalis and M. trogontherii, and the contemporary M. columbi. The reason for the smaller size is unknown. Female woolly mammoths reached 2.6–2.9 m (8.5–9.5 ft) in shoulder heights and were built more lightly than males, weighing up to 4 tonnes (4.4 short tons). A newborn calf would have weighed about 90 kg (200 lb). These sizes are deduced from comparison with modern elephants of similar size.[34] Few frozen specimens have preserved genitals, so the gender is usually determined through examination of the skeleton. The best indication of sex is the size of the pelvic girdle, since the opening that functions as the birth canal is always wider in females than in males.[35] Though the mammoths on Wrangel Island were smaller than those of the mainland, their size varied, and they were not small enough to be considered "island dwarfs".[36] The last woolly mammoth populations are claimed to have decreased in size and increased their sexual dimorphism, but this was dismissed in a 2012 study.[37

## Physical Characteristics

The habitat of the woolly mammoth is known as "mammoth steppe" or "tundra steppe". This environment stretched across northern Asia, many parts of Europe, and the northern part of North America during the last ice age. It was similar to the grassy steppes of modern Russia, but the flora was more diverse, abundant, and grew faster. Grasses, sedges, shrubs, and herbaceous plants were present, and scattered trees were mainly found in southern regions. This habitat was not dominated by ice and snow, as is popularly believed, since these regions are thought to have been high-pressure areas at the time. The habitat of the woolly mammoth also supported other grazing herbivores such as the woolly rhinoceros, wild horses, and bison.[71] A 2014 study concluded that forbs (a group of herbaceous plants) were more important in the steppe-tundra than previously acknowledged, and that it was a primary food source for the ice-age megafauna.[72]

Mural depicting a herd walking near the Somme River in France, by Charles R. Knight, 1916
The southernmost woolly mammoth specimen known is from the Shandong province of China, and is 33,000 years old.[73] The southernmost European remains are from the Depression of Granada in Spain and are of roughly the same age.[74][75] DNA studies have helped determine the phylogeography of the woolly mammoth. A 2008 DNA study showed two distinct groups of woolly mammoths: one that became extinct 45,000 years ago and another one that became extinct 12,000 years ago. The two groups are speculated to be divergent enough to be characterised as subspecies. The group that became extinct earlier stayed in the middle of the high Arctic, while the group with the later extinction had a much wider range.[76] Recent stable isotope studies of Siberian and New World mammoths have shown there were also differences in climatic conditions on either side of the Bering land bridge, with Siberia being more uniformly cold and dry throughout the Late Pleistocene.[77] During the Younger Dryas age, woolly mammoths briefly expanded into north-east Europe, whereafter the mainland populations became extinct.[78]

A 2008 genetic study showed that some of the woolly mammoths that entered North America through the Bering land bridge from Asia migrated back about 300,000 years ago and had replaced the previous Asian population by about 40,000 years ago, not long before the entire species became extinct.[79] Fossils of woolly mammoths and Columbian mammoths have been found together in a few localities of North America, including the Hot Springs sinkhole of South Dakota where their regions overlapped. It is unknown whether the two species were sympatric and lived there simultaneously, or if the woolly mammoths may have entered these southern areas during times when Columbian mammoth populations were absent there.[71]

## In the Universe

Hannibal dressed as a mammoth tries the teach the other elephants, to be like mammoths