| Mammoth Fossil range: Early Pliocene to Middle Holocene |
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| Columbian mammoth in the George C. Page Museum, Los Angeles | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Proboscidea |
| Family: | Elephantidae |
| Genus: | †Mammuthus Brookes, 1828 |
| Species | |
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A mammoth is any species of the extinct genus Mammuthus. These 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 to 4,500 years ago.[1][2] The word mammoth comes from the Russian мамонт mamont, probably in turn from the Vogul (Mansi) language, mang ont, meaning "earth horn".[3]
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Like their modern relative the elephant, mammoths were quite large; in English the noun "mammoth" has become an adjective meaning "huge" or "massive". The largest known species, Songhua River Mammoth (Mammuthus sungari) , reached heights of at least 5 metres (16 feet) at the shoulder. Mammoths would probably normally weigh in the region of 6 to 8 tons, but exceptionally large males may have exceeded 12 tons. However, most species of mammoth were only about as large as a modern Asian Elephant. Fossils of species of dwarf mammoth have been found on the Californian Channel Islands (Mammuthus exilis) and the Mediterranean island of Sardinia (Mammuthus lamarmorae). There was also a race of dwarf woolly mammoths on Wrangel Island, north of Siberia, within the Arctic Circle.
An 11-foot (3.4 m) long mammoth tusk was discovered north of Lincoln, Illinois in 2005.[4]
Based on studies of their close relatives the modern elephants, mammoths probably had a gestation period of 22 months, resulting in a single calf being born. Their social structure was probably the same as that of African and Asian elephants, with females living in herds headed by a matriarch, whilst bulls lived solitary lives or formed loose groups after sexual maturity.[citation needed]
In May 2007, the carcass of a one-month-old female woolly mammoth calf was discovered in a layer of permafrost near the Yuribei River in Russia, where it had been buried for 37,000 years. Alexei Tikhonov, the Russian Academy of Science's Zoological Institute's deputy director, has dismissed the prospect of cloning the animal, as the whole cells required for cloning would have burst under the freezing conditions. Nonetheless, DNA is expected to be well-enough preserved to be useful for research on mammoth phylogeny and perhaps physiology.[5][6] However, Dr Sayaka Wakayama from the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology in Kobe, Japan, believes that a technique she has used to clone mice from specimens frozen for sixteen years could be used successfully on recovered mammoth tissue: she cites that in her experiments the dead mice had been frozen to -20°C under simulated natural conditions, without using the usual preservative chemicals.[7]
Researchers at Penn State University have sequenced about 85% of the gene map of the woolly mammoth, using DNA taken from hair samples collected from a selection of specimens, advancing the possibility of bringing the woolly mammoth back to life by inserting mammoth DNA sequences into the genome of the modern-day elephant. Although the samples were washed with bleach to remove possible contamination by bacteria or fungi, some DNA bases identified may be from the contaminating organisms and these have yet to be distinguished. To this end, scientists at the Broad Institute are currently generating a comparison with the genome of the African elephant.[8][9][10] The information cannot be used to synthesize mammoth DNA, but Dr Stephan Schuster, leader of the project, notes that the mammoth’s genes differ at only some 400,000 sites from the genome of the African elephant and it would be possible (though not with presently available technology) to modify an elephant cell at these sites to make it resemble one bearing a mammoth's genome, and implant it into a surrogate elephant mother.[11]
There is an estimate of 150 million mammoth remains in Russia's Siberian permafrost, which covers a vast sparsely inhabited area.[12] Some of the remains are frozen complete, others in pieces of bone, tusk, tissue and wool, from less than a metre to 1 km below ground.[13]
The woolly mammoth was the last species of the genus. Most populations of the woolly mammoth in North America and Eurasia, as well all the Columbian mammoths in North America, died out around the time of the last glacial retreat, as part of a mass extinction of megafauna in northern Eurasia and the Americas. Until recently, it was generally assumed that the last woolly mammoths vanished from Europe and southern Siberia about 10,000 BC, but new findings show that some were still present there about 8,000 BC. Only slightly later, the woolly mammoths also disappeared from continental northern Siberia.[14] A small population survived on St. Paul Island, Alaska, up until 3,750 BC,[2][15][16] and the small mammoths of Wrangel Island survived until 1,650 BC.[17][18][19]
A definitive explanation for their mass extinction is yet to be agreed upon. The warming trend (Holocene) that occurred 12,000 years ago, accompanied by a glacial retreat and rising sea levels, has been suggested as a contributing factor. Forests replaced open woodlands and grasslands across the continent. The available habitat may have been reduced for some megafaunal species, such as the mammoth. However, such climate changes were nothing new; numerous very similar warming episodes had occurred previously within the ice age of the last several million years without producing comparable megafaunal extinctions, so climate alone is unlikely to have played a decisive role.[20][21] The spread of advanced human hunters through northern Eurasia and the Americas around the time of the extinctions was a new development, and thus probably contributed significantly.[20][21]
Whether the general mammoth population died out for climatic reasons or due to overhunting by humans is controversial. Another theory suggests that mammoths may have fallen victim to an infectious disease. A combination of climate change and hunting by humans has been suggested as the most likely explanation for their extinction.
Data derived from studies done on living elephants suggests human hunting was likely a strong contributing factor in the mammoth's final extinction[citation needed]. Homo erectus is known to have consumed mammoth meat as early as 1.8 million years ago.[22]
However, the American Institute of Biological Sciences also notes that bones of dead elephants, left on the ground and subsequently trampled by other elephants, tend to bear marks resembling butchery marks, which have previously been misinterpreted as such by archaeologists[citation needed].
The survival of the dwarf mammoths on Russia's Wrangel Island was due to the island's very remote location and lack of inhabitants in the early Holocene period[citation needed]. The European discovery of the island (by American whalers) did not occur until the 1820s[citation needed]. A similar dwarfing occurred with the Pygmy Mammoth on the outer Channel Islands of California, but at an earlier period. Those animals were very likely killed by early Paleo-Native Americans, and habitat loss caused by a rising sea level that split Santa Rosae into the outer Channel Islands[citation needed].
Recent research indicates that mammoths survived in the Americas until 10,000 years ago. This conclusion is from research, by James Haile and Eske Willerslev of the University of Copenhagen, of sediments found in central Alaska, and reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. [23]
Mammoth Lakes [1] is a resort city next to Mammoth Mountain which is a popular skiing destination. Mammoth Lakes is in the Eastern Sierra region of the Sierra Nevada mountains in California.
The Sierra Nevada mountains are a popular snow skiing destination. For Californians living in Los Angeles, Mammoth Mountain is the easiest resort to get to from Los Angeles.
The Town of Mammoth Lakes serves one main function: a place for these hordes of Los Angelenos to stay. Condos, motels, hotels, and restaurants fill this small town to serve the flood of winter visitors. In summer, the flood stops and rents plunge, making Mammoth an affordable base to explore the region.
At 8000 feet of elevation, the city stays naturally cool during the region's summer heat waves. Nearby Bishop routinely heats to 105°F (40C) while Mammoth tops out around 84°F (29C).
Nearby US 395 brings visitors from the south (Los Angeles and Bakersfield) and the north (Reno).
From the San Francisco Bay Area, Highway 120 (Tioga Road) from Yosemite is the quick route, but is passable only in summer and early fall. Interstate 80 and US 50 provide cross-mountain access during the winter months, subject to icy conditions and closure due to blizzards.
Between the city of Mammoth Lakes and the Mammoth Mountain resort, a bike will do fine in summer. Frequent trams run between the town and the slopes during the winter, with outside racks for skis and snowboards. For everything else, you need a car.
| This is a usable article. It has information for getting in as well as some complete entries for restaurants and hotels. An adventurous person could use this article, but please plunge forward and help it grow! |
Category: Usable articles
MAMMOTH Russ. mammot, mod. mamant; the Tatar word mama, earth, from which it is supposed to be derived, is not known to exist), a name given to an extinct elephant, Elephas primigenius of Blumenbach. Probably no extinct animal has left such abundant evidence of its former existence; immense numbers of bones, teeth, and more or less entire carcases, or " mummies," as they may be called, having been discovered, with the flesh, skin and hair in situ, in the frozen soil of the tundra of northern Siberia.
The"general characteristics of the order Proboscidea, to which the mammoth belongs, are given under that heading. The mammoth pertains to the most highly specialized section of the group of elephants, which also contains the modern Asiatic species. Of the whole group it is in many respects, as in the size and form of the tusks and the characters of the molar teeth, the farthest removed from the mastodon type, while its nearest surviving relative, the Asiatic elephant (E. maximus), has retained the slightly more generalized characters of the mammoth's contemporaries of more southern climes, E. columbi of America and E. armeniacus of the Old World. The tusks, or upper incisor teeth, which were probably smaller in the female, in the adult males attained the length of from 9 to io ft. measured along the outer curve. Upon leaving the head they:were directed at first downwards, and outwards, then upwards and finally inwards at the tips, and generally with a tendency to a spiral form not seen in other elephants.
It is chiefly by the characters of the molar teeth that the various extinct modifications of the elephant type are distinguished. Those of the mammoth (fig. 2) differ from the corresponding organs of allied species in great breadth of the crown as compared with the length, the narrowness and crowding or close approximation of the ridges, the thinness of the enamel, and its straightness, parallelism and absence of " crimping," as seen on the worn surface or in a horizontal section of the tooth. The molars, as in other elephants, are six in number on each side above and below, succeeding each other from before backwards. Of these Dr Falconer gave the prevailing " ridge-formula "(or number of complete ridges in each tooth) as 4, 8, 12, 12, 16, 24, as in E. maximus. Dr Leith-Adams, working from more abundant materials, has shown that the number of ridges of each tooth, especially those at the posterior end of the series, is subject to individual variation, ranging in each tooth of the series within the following limits: 3 to 4, 6 to 9, 9 to 12, 9 to 15, 14 to 16, 18 to 27 - excluding the small plates, called " talons," at each end. Besides these variations in the number of ridges or plates of which each tooth is composed, the thickness of the enamel varies so much as to have given rise to a distinction between a " thick-plated " and a " thin-plated " variety - the latter being most prevalent among specimens from the Arctic regions. From the specimens with thick enamel plates the transition to the other species mentioned above, including E. maximus, is almost imperceptible.
The bones of the skeleton generally more resemble those of the Indian elephant than of any other species, but the skull differs in the narrower summit, narrower temporal fossae, and more prolonged incisive sheaths, supporting the roots of the enormous tusks. Among the external characters by which the mammoth was distinguished from either of the existing species of elephant was the dense clothing, not only of long, coarse outer hair, but also of close under woolly hair of a reddish-brown colour, evidently in adaptation to the cold climate it inhabited. This character is represented in rude but graphic drawings of prehistoric age found in caverns in the south of France. It should be added that young Asiatic elephants often show considerable traces of the woolly coat of the mammoth. The average height does not appear to have exceeded that of either of the existing species of elephant.
The geographical range of the mammoth was very extensive. There is scarcely a county in England in which its remains have not been found in alluvial gravel or in caverns, and numbers of its teeth are dredged in the North Sea. In Scotland and Ireland its remains are less abundant, and in Scandinavia and Finland they appear to be unknown; but they have been found in vast numbers at various localities throughout the greater part of central Europe (as far south as Santander and Rome), northern Asia, and the northern part of the American continent.
The mammoth belongs to the post-Tertiary or Pleistocene epoch and was contemporaneous with man. There is evidence to show that it existed in Britain before, during and after the glacial period. It is in northern Siberia that its remains have erect position, with the soft parts and hairy covering entire, have been brought to light.
(From Owen.) FIG. 2. - Grinding surface of Upper Molar Tooth of the7Mammoth (Elephas primigenius). c, cement; d, dentine; e, enamel.
For geographical distribution and anatomical characters see Falconer's Palaeontological Memoirs, vol. ii. (1868); B. Dawkins, " Elephas Primigenius, its Range in Space and Time," Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., xxxv. 138 (1879); and A. Leith Adams, " Monograph of British Fossil Elephants," part ii., Palaeontographical Society (1879). (W. H. F.; R. L.*)
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| Mammoth Fossil range: Pliocene to Holocene | |||||||||||||
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Mammoths were hairy elephants of the genus Mammuthus. They lived in Europe until 4,500 years ago, and were adapted to cold climate. They were killed off by hunters and climate change.
They lived in the Pliocene and Pleistocene. In the Pleistocene, northern Europe was covered with ice and tundra. There were a series of ice ages. The whole world was much colder than it is now.
Mammoth were hunted by early humans, who used spears, and cut them up with hand axes. Their frozen flesh has been analysed for its DNA sequence.[1][2][3]
| Error creating thumbnail: sh: convert: command not found |
   | The Lenape Stone or The Indian and the Mammoth - OPTIONS: THE LENAPE STONE OR THE INDIAN AND THE MAMMOTH |
| | The Great Mammoth Hoax - The Great Mammoth Hoax |
| | BBC: Mammoth skeleton found in Siberia - BBC NEWS | Europe | Mammoth skeleton found in Siberia |
 | "Back from the dead": - Back from the dead | COSMOS magazine |
| | Surviving Extinction: Where Woolly Mammoths Endured - Surviving Extinction: Where Woolly Mammoths Endured | LiveScience |
| | Baby mammoth find promises breakthrough - Baby mammoth find promises breakthrough | Science | Reuters |
| | Baby mammoth discovery unveiled - BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Baby mammoth discovery unveiled |
| | PDF fulltext - An Error Occurred Setting Your User Cookie |
| | Humans not responsible for mammoth extinction - World History Blog: Humans not responsible for mammoth extinction |
| | The Waco Mammoth Site - Baylor University || Marketing & Communications || News |
| | Wenas Creek Mammoth Site - Central Washington University - Wenas Creek Mammoth Project |
| | Radiocarbon Dating Evidence for Mammoths on Wrangel Island, Arctic Ocean, until 2000 BC - Mammoths on Wrangel Island |
| | Science - Nuclear Gene Indicates Coat-Color Polymorphism in Mammoths -- Römpler et al. 313 (5783): 62 -- Science |
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