Stories that stick
Myths
Mammoths were the ancestors of today’s elephants
Mammoths don’t just look like elephants — they were elephants. Modern elephants and mammoths both belong to the elephant family, Elephantidae. Prehistoric mammoths didn’t evolve into modern-day elephants; they are cousins. Natural History Museum Asian elephants are mammoths’ closest relatives. Natural History Museum Mammoths are closely related to present-day Asian elephants (Elephas maximus), and these groups broke away from their last common ancestor about six million years ago. Britannica
All mammoths were woolly, and they lived on bare snowfields
The woolly mammoth, the Natural History Museum says, is an ice age icon, but it was only the very last chapter in a six-million-year-long story. Natural History Museum In total, there were around 10 species of mammoth that roamed the planet long before the iconic ice age woolly mammoth. Natural History Museum Artwork of woolly mammoths sometimes places them against stark, snowy backdrops. But while they were adapted to cold conditions, they were living in richly vegetated landscapes, mostly away from deep snow cover. Natural History Museum
A woolly mammoth was the biggest of all mammoths
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 Southern and steppe mammoths, the Museum says, weighed some 10 tonnes, making them heavier than any land animal alive today. They were also up to four metres tall. Natural History Museum Most mammoths were about as large as modern elephants. The North American imperial mammoth (M. imperator) attained a shoulder height of 4 metres (14 feet). At the other extreme were certain dwarfed forms whose ancestors became isolated on various islands. Britannica
How tall and heavy was a woolly mammoth?
The Natural History Museum, quoting Professor Adrian Lister, says the woolly mammoth was about halfway between modern Asian and African elephants: 3-3.5 metres at the shoulder and about four to five or six tonnes, depending on sex. Britannica’s woolly mammoth article gives about 3 to 3.7 metres (about 10 to 12 feet) and 5,500 to 7,300 kg (about 6 to 8 tons). The ranges overlap, but they are not the same. This site keeps both and does not pick a single official height or weight.
Every mammoth was gone by about 10,000 or 9,500 years ago
Woolly mammoths were largely extinct by about 10,000 years ago, due to the pressures of a warming climate (which reduced the habitat of these cold-adapted mammals) combined with hunting by humans. Britannica But hardly anyone had doubted, that paper says, that mammoths had become extinct everywhere by around 9,500 years before present (BP). New discoveries on Wrangel Island in the Arctic Ocean forced that view to be revised. Nature, 1993 On Alaska’s St Paul Island, they lasted until 5,600 years ago and, further north, on Wrangel Island until 4,000 years ago. Natural History Museum
When did the last Wrangel Island mammoths die?
The Natural History Museum says woolly mammoths lasted on Wrangel Island until 4,000 years ago, and a short companion page says that by 4,000 years ago they were gone. Britannica says they persisted as late as 4,300 years ago, and its genus article ties that figure to examination of a fossil tooth discovered in 2015. A 1993 Nature letter by Vartanyan, Garutt and Sher reported numerous teeth of “dwarf mammoth” dated 7,000-4,000 yr BP — radiocarbon years before present, which is not the same wording as “years ago.” This site keeps the figures with their wording and does not flatten them into one date.
It is settled that inbreeding killed the last Wrangel mammoths
Other evidence suggests that woolly mammoths persisted until 5,600 years ago on St. Paul Island, Alaska, in the Bering Sea and as late as 4,300 years ago on Wrangel Island, an Arctic island located off the coast of northern Russia, before succumbing to extinction from inbreeding and loss of genetic diversity. Britannica An examination of a fossil tooth discovered in 2015 indicated that a tiny population of mammoths persisted on Wrangel Island, an Arctic island located off the coast of northern Russia, as late as 4,300 years ago before succumbing to extinction from the effects of inbreeding and the loss of genetic diversity. Britannica The Museum also has not identified any significant environmental change on Wrangel about 4,000 years ago. There’s nothing obvious in climate or vegetation. It is possible that genetic mutations in this small and isolated population may have led to poor health and ultimately extinction. Natural History Museum
What ended the Wrangel Island population?
Britannica says the Wrangel mammoths succumbed to extinction from inbreeding and loss of genetic diversity. The Natural History Museum, with Lister, says it has not identified any significant environmental change on Wrangel about 4,000 years ago, that the first signs of humans come only a few hundred years after the last mammoth fossils, that there is evidence people hunted seals but no evidence they were hunting mammoths, and that genetic mutations in a small isolated population may have led to poor health and ultimately extinction — while still treating the end as a question, not a settled cause. This site reports both and does not pick a winner.
Scientists have already brought the woolly mammoth back
These remains and fossils of teeth have allowed scientists to collect and sequence woolly mammoth DNA. Some have suggested that advances in genetics and reproductive cloning technologies since the 1990s could allow scientists to resurrect the woolly mammoth. The oldest preserved mammoth DNA, which also has the distinction of being the oldest known animal DNA, dates back to more than one million years ago and may belong to a direct ancestor of the woolly mammoth. Britannica
Some scientists have suggested that cloning and related methods could one day resurrect a woolly mammoth. That is a suggestion, in Britannica’s wording, not a completed resurrection. This site does not treat a living woolly mammoth as a present fact.