Not the most famous of the mammoths, M. subplanifrons still remains the earliest known species of the genus with some of the more famous species such as M. primigenius (woolly mammoth) and M. columbi (Columbian mammoth) not appearing until much later in the Pleistocene era. The most obvious feature that reveals M. subplanifrons to be a mammoth are the spirally twisting tusks … Read more
The woolly mammoth of the ice age Mammuthus primigenius is more popularly known as the woolly mammoth that today is regarded as the poster animal for the ice age, a colloquial term for the Pleistocene period which saw a series of glaciations across the upper latitudes of the Northern hemisphere and an overall reduction in global … Read more
In Depth Further Reading – Tooth morphology of Mammuthus meridionalis from the Southern bight of the North Sea and from several localities in the Netherlands – Hans van Essen – 2003. – Mammuthus meridionalis (Nesti, 1825) from Campo di Pile (L’Aquila, Abruzzo, Central Italy) – S. Agostini, M.R. Palombo M.A. Rossi, E. Di Canzio & … Read more
In Depth Mammuthus columbi is better known as the Columbian mammoth, although it is not actually named after the country Colombia that is in South America, but after the province of British Columbia in Canada. The Columbian mammoth appears to have been one of the most common mammoths roaming North America during the Pleistocene, and is … Read more
In Depth During the Pleistocene there was an island called Santa Rosae off the southern coast of California between the areas that are today known as Point Conception and Ventura. At some point, perhaps when the sea levels were particularly low, Columbian mammoths (M. columbi) crossed over from the mainland to colonise Santa Rosae. Although large … Read more
M. africanavus was an African mammoth that seems to have lived after M. subplanifrons and is important to researchers of elephants and mammoths because it is considered to be the ancestor of M. meridionalis (Southern mammoth). In turn the descendants of M. meridionalis would go onto to produce some of the more famous mammoth species such as M. trogontherii (Steppe mammoth) and M. primigenius (Woolly mammoth). … Read more
Mammuthus trogontherii, better known as the steppe mammoth, holds an important place for those who study mammoths as it is often treated as a link between the early M. meridionalis known as the southern mammoth and the later M. primigenius, more famously known as the woolly mammoth. M. trogontherii however was larger than both its ancestor and descendent which … Read more