Elephants and mammoths are large mammals that have long captured human imagination. While modern elephants roam parts of Africa and Asia, their extinct relatives, the mammoths, once traversed vast regions across multiple continents. Exploring their relationship and individual traits reveals a fascinating story of adaptation and survival in diverse environments.
A Shared Ancestry
Elephants and mammoths share a common evolutionary background, both belonging to the order Proboscidea, a group characterized by a trunk. This ancient lineage originated in northeastern Africa 61 to 54.8 million years ago. Mammoths and modern elephants are considered cousins, stemming from a shared ancestor.
Molecular studies indicate that Asian elephants and mammoths are more closely related to each other than either is to African elephants. The divergence between the Asian elephant and mammoth lineages occurred around 6 million years ago, with the African elephant lineage separating from their common ancestor 7.6 million years ago. Despite these divergences, their shared ancestry explains similarities such as their large size, the presence of tusks derived from incisor teeth, and their defining trunks.
Differences Between Them
Despite their shared lineage, woolly mammoths and modern elephants developed distinct physical characteristics suited to their environments. Woolly mammoths, adapted to the cold tundras of the Pleistocene era, possessed a thick, shaggy coat of hair up to 3 feet long to retain heat. In contrast, African and Asian elephants have sparse hair, with only bristly strands around their eyes, ears, and tails, reflecting their adaptation to warmer climates.
Woolly mammoths stood up to 12 feet tall and weighed between 6 to 8 tons. African elephants, the largest living land mammals, reach heights of 13 feet and weigh up to 7 tons, while Asian elephants are slightly smaller, 10 to 11 feet tall and weighing up to 5.5 tons. Mammoth tusks were longer and more curved than those of modern elephants, reaching 16 feet in length and weighing over 200 pounds, while elephant tusks are about 6 feet long. Woolly mammoths also had smaller ears, which minimized heat loss in cold environments, whereas elephants have large ears with extensive blood vessels that help dissipate heat in hot climates. Mammoth molars were also flatter and wider, adapted for grinding tough vegetation like grasses and sedges found in their steppe-tundra habitats, while elephant molars are suited for a broader diet of fibrous plants.
Why Mammoths Vanished
The extinction of woolly mammoths, which occurred around 10,000 years ago, with some isolated populations surviving until 4,000 years ago on Wrangel Island, is debated by scientists. Theories point to a combination of climate change and human hunting pressure as the causes of their disappearance. As the Earth’s climate warmed at the end of the last ice age, 14,000 to 11,500 years ago, the vast steppe-tundra habitats that mammoths relied on began to shrink. This warming led to significant changes in vegetation, reducing the availability of their main food sources, such as grasses and shrubs.
At the same time, human populations expanded and perfected hunting techniques, increasing pressure on already vulnerable mammoth populations. While mammoths had survived previous climate fluctuations, the presence of human hunters during this specific warming period introduced a new factor they had not encountered before. Some research suggests that climate change, particularly changes in precipitation affecting vegetation, was the main cause, with human hunting acting as a contributing factor or the “final straw” for dwindling populations. The last remaining mammoths on Wrangel Island faced poor genetic health due to inbreeding.