In the world famous game World of Warcraft there is a certain artifact called "reins of a woolly mammoth." Its owner can call for help a huge beast with thick wool and sharp tusks. His appearance alone plunges enemies into horror, and makes his allies tremble with delight. But what is most striking is that the prototype of the terrifying beast was a very real creature that caused the dawn of mankind.
Guests from the distant past
The woolly mammoth is a close relative of modern elephants. However, do not assume that these giants were direct progenitors of African giants. No, in reality they just had a common ancestor. Subsequently, this branch was divided into two completely different species. In particular, it was because of their differences that the elephants were able to survive, leaving their relative far behind.
As for woolly mammoths, this species appeared about 200-300 thousand years ago. According to the research of paleontologists, their homeland was Siberia. Therefore, most of the discoveries revealing the truth about their lives were made in this harsh region. True, at that time the climate here was not at all cold, but mild, temperate.
How can one judge someone who has long been dead?
The woolly mammoth became extinct a long time ago. To be more precise, the last representative of this species died about 4 thousand years ago. Therefore, it is not surprising that many people are skeptical that scientists present them with a detailed description of this animal, and also reveal the features of its behavior. After all, how can one judge a creature that has not existed in the world for more than 4 thousand years?
Well, the truth is that scientists are helped by a science like paleontology. It allows them to look far into the past, based only on the remains of animals. As for woolly mammoths, there are quite a lot of similar paleontological findings in the arsenal of scientists. In addition, some of them are very well preserved.
For example, recently a woolly mammoth was found in Taimyr, frozen in a block of ice. According to scientists, he lay there for at least 30 thousand years. Thanks to ice, the carcass of the animal did not decompose, which means that paleontologists received ideal samples of soft tissues, wool and even undigested contents of the stomach. Thus, science was able to almost completely reveal all the secrets of extinct giants.
Woolly mammoth: description
Many imagine mammoths in the role of giants, like dark mountains moving along snowy plains. In fact, this animal did not possess such an impressive size and only slightly surpassed modern elephants. For example, the largest woolly mammoth found by man was about 4 meters tall.
On average, these animals reached 2-2.5 meters in height, which is not so much. More importantly, the elephant’s relatives weighed much more than he did. Judging by the structure of their bones, adults could reach a weight of 6-8 tons. Such parameters were due to the fact that the mammoths had large reserves of subcutaneous fat, which saved them from severe cold.
Another important difference of this species was the thick coat covering the entire body of the beast. Its length changed throughout the year, allowing the animal to adapt to the ambient temperature. But even in the summer, it hung in clumps from the sides of the mammoth and sometimes reached 90 cm in length. As for the color, this beast possessed a dark brown, and sometimes black, color of hair.
It is curious that, unlike elephants, the woolly mammoth had small ears. This means that modern representatives of this group acquired this gift of evolution after the extinction of their relatives. Also, the mammoths had a medium-sized trunk, which seemed quite dwarf against the background of large curved tusks.
Mammoth distribution
As mentioned earlier, the birthplace of the woolly mammoth is Siberia. Soon, however, driven by glaciers, they migrated inland. Thanks to this, this species captivated most of the expanses of Eurasia, and also moved to North America.
The remains of mammoths are found even in China, Spain and Mexico. This suggests that the harsh winter reached even these seemingly hot regions. True, scientists believe that relatives of elephants did not live here for long, as the returning heat drove them back to their native lands.
Features of the behavior of the woolly mammoth
Today, researchers are confident that modern elephants are able to help them solve the mystery of the behavior of mammoths. Indeed, despite the fact that these two species have a lot of differences, they nevertheless descended from one common ancestor. Consequently, their habits and way of life are in many respects similar, as they stretch their roots deep into the evolutionary tree.
So, why is the woolly mammoth remarkable? The behavior of this animal, to be honest, can be explained by several suggestions. Firstly, his main goal was food. Because of its size, he had to constantly look for sources of food, and therefore rarely remained in one place. Secondly, within the flock there was a rigid hierarchy based on matriarchy. Moreover, often the group of mammoths consisted only of children and females, and males preferred to lead a lonely lifestyle.
Scientists have put forward another interesting hypothesis based on the morphology of the animal. All mammoths had relatively short trunks, therefore, they could not get their food on tall trees. Therefore, it is highly likely that these animals mainly inhabited the steppes and meadows and only occasionally entered the forest. By the way, this hypothesis is also confirmed by the contents of the stomachs of those mammoths that scientists found among the vast glaciers of Siberia.
Natural enemies of mammoths
For a long time, mammoths lived without fear, since they had impressive sizes, which frightened away all small predators. However, harsh winters led to the fact that animals became more bloodthirsty and fearless. And the wolves were the most dangerous in those days, because they attacked their victim with an organized flock. True, even they did not dare to rush to a large beast, and yet hungry predators tracked off the flock of cubs.
However, a far more terrible hunter was man. Endowed with intelligence, he was able to defeat any opponent, including such a large one. And large reserves of meat and fat forced our ancestors to attack these peaceful animals more and more often.
The reasons for the disappearance of mammoths
The extinction of the woolly mammoth is a topic that has been discussed for more than one year, and even not one dozen years. Several hypotheses were put forward - from global temperature changes to anthropogenic factors. Since animals died too quickly, scientists threw away all theories related to gradual climate change or human genocide. Most likely, the cause of the disappearance of this species was the widespread disease caused by a lack of calcium in the diet of animals (findings of paleontologists testify to this). This could happen because the groundwater level dropped sharply and they stopped bringing the right amount of minerals to the surface. But there are also supporters of another version, according to which the giants were destroyed by a powerful cataclysm - a sharp cooling as a result of the displacement of the earth's crust.
As a result, almost all mammoths became extinct about 10 thousand years ago. The exception was a small animal population that lived on Wrangel Island. Here they lived several thousand years longer than their relatives. However, the limited territory has led to the fact that the animal gene pool has completely exhausted itself due to closely related ties.