Mammoth

From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mammoth
Temporal range: Pliocene to Holocene:
5 mya – 4,500 years ago
A Columbian mammoth
Scientific classification
Kingdom:
Phylum:
Class:
Order:
Family:
Genus:
Mammuthus

A mammoth is any species of the extinct elephantid genus Mammuthus.

Overview[change | change source]

The various species of mammoth were commonly equipped with long, curved tusks.

They lived from the Pliocene epoch into the Holocene about 4,000 years ago, and various species existed in Africa, Europe, Asia, and North America.

Mammoths are more closely related to living Asian elephants than African elephants.

Fossil works[change | change source]

The term mammoth may refer to a number of organisms, but is used here to describe the hairy proboscidean 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 epochs.[1][2] In the Pleistocene, northern Europe was covered with ice and tundra. There were a series of ice ages, which allowed the mammoths to spread across the land.

Mammoths 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.[3][4][5]

Related pages[change | change source]

References[change | change source]

  1. "Woolly Mammoth ('Mammuthus primigenius)". The Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University. Archived from the original on 2007-09-27. Retrieved 2012-03-07.
  2. Guthrie R.D (2004). "Radiocarbon evidence of mid-Holocene mammoths stranded on an Alaskan Bering Sea island". Nature. 429 (6993): 746–9. Bibcode:2004Natur.429..746D. doi:10.1038/nature02612. PMID 15201907. S2CID 4394371.
  3. Staff (2008). "Scientists sequence woolly-mammoth genome". Penn State Live. Penn State University. Archived from the original on 4 March 2009. Retrieved 25 November 2008.
  4. Fox, Maggie (2008). "Mammoth genome sequence may explain extinction". Reuters. Retrieved 20 November 2008.
  5. Gilbert, Thomas P. (2007). "Whole-Genome Shotgun Sequencing of Mitochondria from Ancient Hair Shafts" (PDF). Science. Washington DC: American Association for the Advancement of Science. 317 (5846): 1927–1930. Bibcode:2007Sci...317.1927G. doi:10.1126/science.1146971. ISSN 1095-9203. PMID 17901335. S2CID 84787255. Archived from the original (PDF) on 9 December 2008. Retrieved 25 November 2008.

Other websites[change | change source]

Media related to Mammuthus at Wikimedia Commons
Data related to Mammuthus at Wikispecies