Woolly Mammoth

Wildlife Creatures | Woolly Mammoth | The woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius), also called the tundra mammoth, was a species of mammoth. This animal is known from bones and frozen carcasses from northern North America and northern Eurasia with the best preserved carcasses in Siberia. They are perhaps the most well known species of mammoth. This mammoth species was first recorded in (possibly 150,000 years old) deposits of the second last glaciation in Eurasia. It was derived from the steppe mammoth (Mammuthus trogonotherii).

It disappeared from most of its range at the end of the Pleistocene (10,000 years ago), with an isolated population still living on Wrangel Island until roughly 1700 BC. Woolly mammoths are common in the fossil record. Unlike most other prehistoric animals, their remains are often not literally fossilised - that is, turned into stone - but rather are preserved in their organic state. This is due in part to the frozen climate of their habitats, and to their massive size. Woolly mammoths are therefore among the best-understood prehistoric vertebrates known to science in terms of anatomy.