The mammoth is an extinct species, it belongs to the elephant family and was a large proboscis mammal. The largest types of mammoth known were the Songhua River mammoth, which was 5.3 meters high and 9.1 meters long and the imperial mammoth was 5 meters high and 5 meters long as a minimum measure. Among the small species are the pygmy mammoth, the Sardinian mammoth and the woolly mammoth, these had an approximate height of 1 to 2 meters, also called the dwarf race. The mammoths could have weighed between 6 to 8 tons, but the alpha males could have weighed 12 to 13 tons.
They existed about 4,000 years ago, in the Cenozoic Era also known as the Quaternary period, mammoth fossils were found in North America, Eurasia and Africa.
This primitive animal was characterized essentially by having its bulging head, extensive curved fangs and by being very muscular pachyderms. Scandinavian species were covered with hair to tolerate the cold snowdrift of their ecosystem. In the explorations that have been carried out, the tusks of a woolly mammoth were found, which had a size of 5 meters.
The social organization of the mammoths was possibly the same as that of the Asian elephants, they lived in herds groomed by females and led by matriarch, the males lived separately in small groups after they reached their sexual maturity.
The last mammoths survived in the Siberian Tundra roughly 4,000 years ago. The species lived throughout Europe and in the Iberian Peninsula, its evanescence was happening little by little gradually since 12,000 years ago, leaving small solitary groups in the tundra and in the Siberian steppes.
There is a great variety in mammoth species which we can mention:
- Mammuthus africanavus (African mammoth).
- Mammuthus columbi (Columbia mammoth).
- Mammuthus exilis (pygmy mammoth).
- Mammuthus lamarmorai (Sardinian mammoth).
- Mammuthus meridionalis (southern mammoth).
- Mammuthus primigenius (woolly mammoth).
- Mammuthus subplanifrons (South African mammoth).
- Mammuthus trogontherii (steppe mammoth).
