Woolly mammoth

The woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) is an extinct mammoth species that existed from the Middle Pleistocene through to the Holocene. It was among the final members of a mammoth lineage that started with the African Mammuthus subplanifrons in the early Pliocene. Its nearest living relative is the Asian elephant. The woolly mammoth split from the steppe mammoth roughly 800,000 years ago in Siberia. In North America, it lived alongside the Columbian mammoth (Mammuthus columbi), and DNA evidence shows the two species interbred. Mammoth remains were familiar in Asia long before Europeans encountered them, and their origin was often attributed to legendary creatures. The species was identified as an extinct elephant by Georges Cuvier in 1796.

Because of frozen carcasses found in Siberia and North America, along with skeletons, teeth, stomach contents, dung, and prehistoric cave paintings, the woolly mammoth’s appearance and behavior are among the most thoroughly studied of any prehistoric animal. It was about the same size as modern African elephants. Males stood a certain height at the shoulder and weighed a certain amount; females were smaller, and newborns weighed about a specific amount. The animal was heavily adapted to cold climates during glacial periods, including the last ice age. It had a coat of long guard hairs over a shorter undercoat, with color ranging from dark to light. Its short ears and tail helped prevent frostbite and heat loss. It possessed long, curved tusks and four molars that were replaced six times over its lifetime. Behavior resembled that of modern elephants: it used its tusks and trunk for manipulating objects, fighting, and foraging. Its diet mainly consisted of forbs and grasses. Individuals could likely live up to 60 years. Its habitat was the mammoth steppe, which covered northern Eurasia and North America.

Early humans lived alongside the woolly mammoth, hunting it for food and using its bones and tusks to create art, tools, and dwellings. The population declined at the end of the Late Pleistocene. The last mainland Siberian populations persisted until roughly 10,000 years ago, though isolated groups survived on St. Paul Island until 5,600 years ago and on Wrangel Island until 4,000 years ago. After extinction, humans continued using mammoth ivory as a raw material, a practice that continues today. The completion of the mammoth genome project in 2015 sparked discussion about possibly reviving the species through various methods, but none are currently feasible.

Taxonomy Native Siberians and Native Americans long knew of woolly mammoth remains and interpreted them in various ways. Remains later reached other parts of Asia and Europe, where they were also explained differently before modern science. The first remains studied by scientists were fossilized teeth and tusks from Siberia, examined by British physician Hans Sloane in 1728. Sloane was the first to recognize they belonged to elephants. He offered a biblical explanation, suggesting they were buried during the Great Flood and that Siberia had once been tropical before a drastic climate shift. Others argued the flood had carried elephants from the tropics to the Arctic. Sloane’s paper relied on travelers’ descriptions and a few scattered bones from Siberia and Britain; he discussed whether the remains were from elephants but drew no firm conclusions.

In 1738, German zoologist Johann Philipp Breyne argued that mammoth fossils were a type of elephant. He could not explain why a tropical animal would be found in cold Siberia and suggested the Great Flood had transported them there. In 1796, French biologist Georges Cuvier was the first to identify woolly mammoth remains not as modern elephants moved to the Arctic, but as an entirely new, extinct species—a concept not widely accepted at the time. Following Cuvier’s identification, German naturalist Johann Friedrich Blumenbach gave the species its scientific name, *Elephas primigenius*, in 1799, placing it in the same genus as the Asian elephant. The name means “first-born elephant.” Cuvier proposed *Elephas mammonteus* a few months later, but the earlier name stuck. In 1828, British naturalist Joshua Brookes used the name *Mammuthus borealis* for woolly mammoth fossils in his collection, coining a new genus name.

The origin of the word “mammoth” is unclear. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it comes from an old Vogul word *mēmoŋt* meaning “earth-horn.” It might be a version of *mehemot*, the Arabic form of the biblical *behemoth*. Another possible origin is Estonian, where *maa* means “earth” and *mutt* means “mole.” The word first appeared in Europe in the early 17th century, referring to *maimanto* tusks from Siberia. U.S. President Thomas Jefferson, keenly interested in paleontology, helped popularize the term.