extinct genus of mammals From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A mammoth is any species of the extinct elephantid genus Mammuthus.
| Mammoth | |
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| A Columbian mammoth | |
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| Genus: | Mammuthus Brookes, 1828 |
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.
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]
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