Hair, tusks, a hump of fat

Coat, tusks and size

If you look at the woolly mammoth, Professor Adrian Lister says, it has a lot of hair and a sloping back, very high at the shoulder, sloping down towards the tail end, which is quite different from modern elephants. Natural History Museum Mammoth tusks, Lister says, are not just curved: they are actually in a spiral shape — they curve in two dimensions. In living elephants, they just gently curve in one dimension. Natural History Museum Woolly mammoths also had very small ears and a shorter tail than their living cousins. Natural History Museum Scientists now think mammoths’ hair was a deeper chocolate-brown colour than some museum reconstructions have shown. Natural History Museum

Its skull was high and domelike, with large downward-directed curved tusks. The woolly mammoth’s ears were small, which exposed a smaller amount of surface area and was likely an adaptation to the cold climates in the Northern Hemisphere. A mound of fat, which served as an energy and water reserve, was present as a hump on the back. Britannica The prominent tusks were directed downward and were very long; in older males they sometimes curved over each other. Britannica A mound of fat was present as a hump on the back. This structure is lacking in fossil remains, but evidence for its presence comes from cave paintings. Britannica

They had a yellowish brown undercoat about 2.5 cm (about 1 inch) thick beneath a coarser outer covering of dark brown hair that grew more than 70 cm (27.5 inches) long in some individuals. Under the extremely thick skin was a layer of insulating fat at times 8 cm (3 inches) thick. Britannica

Many mammoths had a woolly, yellowish brown undercoat about 2.5 cm (1 inch) thick beneath a coarser outer covering of dark brown hair up to 50 cm (20 inches) long. Britannica

The woolly mammoth’s teeth were made up of alternating plates of enamel and a denture that often became worn down by constant back-to-front chewing motions. Britannica Remains of arctic plants have been found in the digestive tracts of frozen mammoth carcasses. It is clear that the mammoth was hunted by early North American hunters. Britannica

The woolly mammoth, Lister says, despite what people think, was about halfway between the modern Asian and African elephants: 3-3.5 metres at shoulder height and about four to five or six tonnes in body weight, depending on whether it is a male or female. Natural History Museum Woolly mammoths stood about 3 to 3.7 meters (about 10 to 12 feet) tall and weighed between 5,500 and 7,300 kg (between about 6 and 8 tons). Britannica

The only ones where we have preserved woolly mammoth soft tissue, Lister says, are from Siberia and Alaska. There is also a small amount of soft tissue from a Columbian mammoth: it has a somewhat hairy coat, but we can’t really say how much. Natural History Museum The relative abundance and, at times, excellent preservation of carcasses of this species found in the permafrost (permanently frozen ground) of Siberia have provided much information about mammoths’ structure and habits. These carcasses are so well preserved that sled dogs have been fed thawed woolly mammoth meat dating to more than 30,000 years ago, and fossil mammoth ivory was previously so abundant that it was exported from Siberia to China and Europe from medieval times. Britannica Lyuba, a well-preserved female woolly mammoth, was about one month old when it died in Siberia about 42,000 years ago. It was discovered in Russia in 2007, and has been displayed at the Field Museum, Chicago. Britannica