Talk:Mammoth

Mammoths: Relationship with Modern Elephants

The article refers to 'African Elephants', but there are two species of elephants found in Africa, the forest elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis), and the savannah elephant (Loxodonta africana). Which is meant? Gliderman (talk) 21:17, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

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Please consider the evidence against an arctic climate for the mammoth, especially before including it in this CD. Any links or references required can be easily produced.

Does anyone have information about the newly discovered "Mammoth" in Nepal? -- Ydd, Sunday, July 14, 2002

It was just a normal asian elephant with big bumps on its head.

Nepal became some more tourist advertisment because of the "sensational" mammoth.

Actually that debated since there still research done.--Standforder (talk) 20:30, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Seems like a taxonomy error here: The present link from Mammutidae in the taxonomy box, goes to Mammoths, which was a genus within the family elephantidae, as far as I understand.

From my own website:"The genus mammoths, in latin Mammuthus, was a group of species, belonging to the family of elephants, entirely separated in taxonomy from the Mastodons and the genus family Mammutidae, although they sometimes shared the same envoronment. (For scientific reasons, the mastodons was renamed to family Mammutidae, which became a source for future confusion and misunderstandings)."

I will not change this however, until someone else gives me confirmation or debate, since I may be wrong.

Dan Koehl 13:57, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC) http://www.elephant.se

According to the SOED (Shorter Oxford English dictionary), the word mammoth is of siberian origin, not russian, i.e. it is not of russian language but of a siberian (altaic) language. The web site (http://www.wordorigins.org/loanword.htm) lists mammoth as a word of Turkish origin. The Turkish for Mammoth is Mamut.

Mammoth revival possible

http://news.uk.msn.com/Article.aspx?cp-documentid=783949 user:angryafghan

Mammoth Ivory

I was searching the web and came across a few websites that spoke of "Fossilized Mammoth Ivory", and after doing a google search found a few more. Is this really from mammoths? If so should there not be a small segment added to this page talking about it? Chooserr u sick

I recall reading (decades ago) that mammoth ivory was a commercially significant export from Siberian regions in the 18th & 19th centuries: I can't offhand think of any citable sources, but there must be some. Incidentally, the term "fossil" technically refers to anything old and dug up (including, originally, ancient human artifacts), so although this ivory was/is "fossilized" in that sense, it was not "turned to stone" in the more restricted colloquial use of the term; it would be essentially identical to elephant ivory. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 05:20, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Addendum: I now see there is more and better information about this on the woolly mammoth page. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 06:03, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

mammoth DNA

Extinct mammoth DNA decoded. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4535190.stm J. D. Redding

used above link to intoduce the minor changes that I thought were missing

I heard on tv or something that once they have the DNA they can sucessfully clone a mammoth. Did they clone a mammoth yet?--Taida 23:10, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Here are some japanese diagrams on how a wholly mammuth could be cloned back into existance in several steps:

• http://blog.ameba.jp/user_images/36/68/10005168635.gif
• http://blog.ameba.jp/user_images/1f/cd/10005168203.gif
• http://blog.ameba.jp/user_images/c0/24/10005169697.gif

Wooly or Woolly?

Both spellings are used in the article. I prefer two l's personally Matthewmayer 00:28, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Both are legitimate. My dictionary says woolly is the more common spelling (my preference too). I think that's true for both British and American. I doubt you'd get complaints if you changed everything in the article to woolly. --Aranae 04:57, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

There is a wikipedia guideline that says you have to change everything to either wooly or woolly. The first major contributator to the article would get to decide.--Taida 23:07, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Cryptozoology

I added some new stuff to the cryptozoology section. (Danielos2). 18 feb 2006.

Better illustration needed=

Modern illustration would be better, as details of mammoth apperance are not widely known.

Also, there should be links to recent sequence of nuclear genes, and late survival in Urals/Siberia.

Image problem

The second image (Image:Mammoth_St_Petersburg.JPG) doesn't load for me. Someone who's better than me at handling wikis image-system should look into this. Elamere 19:58, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

The woolly mammoth did not live in a cold climate as stated in the article

Im new here, so bear with me. (and correct me if this is not the place to discuss this.)

• - 1.) Hair on an animal doesnt automatically imply adaptation to cold, take sheep for example. The mammoth didnt have any "erector muscles" which are used by animals to fluff up thier fur to create an insulating pocket of air. H. Neuville conducted in-depth studies on the mammoth hair “It appears to me impossible to find, in the anatomical examination of the skin and [hair], any argument in favor of adaptation to the cold.” (H. Neuville, “On the Extinction of the Mammoth,” Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution, 1919, p. 332.) The mammoth had hair hanging down to its toes, but every single animal in the arctic has FUR, not hair on thier toes. This would have caused snow to cake on its ankes, as it walked. Also, im not sure where this article gets the fact that mammoths had oil glands, i offer the opposite from Hans Krause, The Mammoth—In Ice and Snow? (Stuttgart: self-published, 1978), p. 53.

That mammoths shows the typical adapatation to cold climates: In comparison to those of modern elephants, the bodies of mammoths were compressed lengthwise. Mammoth trunks were shorter than those of modern elephants. Mammoth ears were small, even compared to the smaller ears of today Asian elephants (the ears of African Loxodonts are much larger). Mammoth tails were much shorter than those of elephants.

Woolly mammoths were covered with the same kind of double fur coat as we find on other large mammals in northern climates today. The dense insulating inner coat consisted of a fine wool. The long, shaggy outer coat (some hairs as long as 50 cm) was composed of guard hairs. It appears that the mammoth changed its hair at the beginning of summer. This happens in many other arctic mammals today.

In addition to the fur coat, woolly mammoths also possessed a three-inch-thick layer of fat underneath their skin as well as an additional fat reserve stored in a hump above the shoulders. Nanahuatzin 12:31, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

• - 2.) Arctic mammals have BOTH erector muscles and oil glands, attributes lacking in the mammoth.

Have not found references about this... Nanahuatzin 12:31, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

• - 3.) The assumption that a thick layer of fat = adaptation to cold, does not apply here... Thick layers of fat imply that food was plentiful Few animals in the arctic have proportionately large layers of fat, while others such as the rhinocerous have very thick layers. Fat usually implies abundant food, something not present in an arctic climate.

Polar bears, seals, peanguins etc, have a thick layer of fat. As a food deposit, and as insulation. Nanahuatzin 12:31, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

• - 4.) The closest relative to the mammoth (the african elephant) has a VERY poor time in the cold weather. Newborn elephants are VERY succeptable to the cold, and must be kept warm and dry. Remember, Hannibal crossed the alps with 37 elephants, and lost all but one due to the weather.

Modern Asian elephants tolerate cold fairly well. Elephants lived as far north as the Honan province in China into early historical times (1500 B.C.). Asian elephants also lived in what is now Syria, Iraq, and Iran. African loxodonts used to inhabit the whole of the African continent into historic times.). The elephants of Hannibal died of hunger and exahustion. Nanahuatzin 12:31, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

• - 5.) The african elephant requires 30-60 gallons of water each day, and the only source of water for the mammoth would be ice/snow. The energy required to convert all this ice/snow to body temperature would consume almost half of a typical elephants calories per day. Also, the trunk (the most vulnerable part) would bear most of this temperature stress.

The Siberian steppes during the last ice age were not covered in ice and snow as they are now, nor was the ground frozen.Nanahuatzin 12:31, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

• - 6.) How would the mammoth get its large requirements of salt? Elephants dig for salt in the earth... the mammoth wouldnt be able to do this because of the permafrost and its curved tusks.

Scientists have long hypothesized that elephants use salt licks to supplement an insufficient dietary intake of sodium, but conclusive verification has been lacking. While it seems sodium in woody plants and natural water supplies may be inadequate to meet the minimum requirements of elephants it is not true they have "large requirements of salt", they like salt, like us. At least not greather than any other animal. The food of the mammoth was diferent from modern elepahnts so there is no way to compare their requeriments. Nanahuatzin 12:31, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

• - 7.) If we examine the plants/animals buried around the mammoth, we should be able to find them all properly suited to an arctic climate.. but that is not what is found. We find rhinocerouses, tigers, bison, horses, antelope, and temperate species of grass (Basset Digby, The Mammoth. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1926.) ALL live in temperate climates. Burrowing animals, such as voles, have been found also.. this doesnt make any sense. How were they supposed to burrow through the permafrost? Noone argues that these other animals were adapted to cold climates, why so for the mammoth?

There was greater abundance and variety of steppe vegetation during the ice ages, this explains how the steppes could support large grazing animals like mammoths. The mammoths may also have migrated south in the winter and north in the summer. Modern elephants are great travellers, so possibly mammoths were too. Nanahuatzin 12:31, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

• - 8.) In January, the AVERAGE temperature of northeastern Siberia is about -28F.. and during the Ice age it was even colder. Now back to the trunk of the mammoth.. it is particularly vulnerable to cold weather, and couldnt survive even one cold night, let alone the eight month long siberian winter. Then you have the young, these temperatures would be even less survivable for them. An elephant dies if its trunk is damaged.

the trunk of the mammoth is shorter, the kind of adaptiation we could expect for cold climates. Nanahuatzin 12:31, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

• - 9.) There are only six months of sunlight in the arctic circle. No plant grows abundantly in this time, in fact, very few grow at all. How would a mammoth, that needs a LARGE amount of food, sustain itself? An african elephant spends almost 16 hours a day foraging for food in a temperate climate! There is no problem finding food there.

There were specuated to be very large numbers of mammoths in these regions, there was neither the adaptation, nor the food to sustain themselves in such a cold climate.. therefore the climate must have been different. (remember, other animals that were in no way adapted to the cold were found in and around the mammoths) Nanahuatzin 12:31, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Was the climate warmer or colder in Siberia at the time the mammoths lived there? Well, both. It appears that at some periods the climate was warmer, at others it was colder. This is inferred by comparing the modern ranges of the plants found in mammoth stomachs as well as by astronomical calculations of temperature similar to those presented at various times in the past in this news group. The mammoths thrived in either case. The determinative factor was the decreased moisture so that the ground did not become permanently frozen as it is today. As a result, the "mammoth steppe" biome, comprised of grasses, succulent herbs, and wormwood, thrived. This biome disappeared around 9000 BP except for some small patches. It was replaced by the current boggy tundra vegetation and permafrost. The mammoths, having lost their source of food, disappeared in Siberia at about the same time..

WHEW!!! Hopefully we can get a good discussion going on this.

Don't forget polar day lasting all summer long.

Hold on... if Mammoths are found perfectly preserved in the Arctic Permafrost, then they must have been there at the same time as the ice when they went in, right? Otherwise they'd have rotted fast. So they MUST have been cold climate dwellers. QED. lol.

Why not simply add both views under a heading like, "Theories of Mamoth habitat and diet" or something? 88.153.174.187 15:53, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

The cuestion posted are from a creationist site. they are not a serious questioning. Creatinist want to challenge the notions of mamoth being older than 4,000 years. Nanahuatzin 05:32, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

All interesting theories, but without good, modern references, they are unencyclopedic (a Smithsonian report from 1919, and a self-published essay from 1979, are hardly compelling sources). Mainstream scientific opinion will dictate the article's content, irrespective of how good the arguments are either way. So for now, mammoths lived in cold climates.--Supersexyspacemonkey 21:56, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Would people just please sign their comments please, I'd like to know the writer of the article--Standforder (talk) 20:28, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Here something for the writter to use to organize the information.

• - Questioning the basis of the belief that mammoths live in extreme cold climates.
• - Questioning what is the basis of depictions of extremely hairy mammoths:
• - Known preserved frozen corpses: Adam’s mammoth, the Museum of Zoology, St. Petersburg & Dima mammoth calf.
• - There was undigested tropical vegetation in their mouths between their teeth, and stomachs. – Earth’s Most Challenging Mysteries.
• - Presently tropical animals have coats hair: animals as bears, big cats, deer, horse, monkeys, rabbit, rodents, sloths, warthogs have fur.
• - The comparison made between the modern Siberian climate.
• - The comparisons made between artic animals.
• - The comparisons made between modern elephants, mammoths, & mastodons: temperatures, climate, diet, fat deposits & etc.
• - frozen “non-artic” animals found frozen mammoths.
• - mammoth anatomy.

• - Britain’s “New Scientist” magazine, “are evidence that the last ice age came upon the Earth very suddenly.”
• - Professor Fred Hoyle of University College, Cardiff, and Elizabeth Butler of Oxford University “suggest that if the last ice age. . . had taken thousands of years to take hold on the Earth, the mammoths would have had time to migrate south to a warmer climate. Their excellent state of preservation is also evidence that they were quickly frozen after death—otherwise they would have begun to decompose”
• - “Some have theorized that these huge masses of stone were carried to their present locations on top of glaciers during an ice age.” “However, these boulders are also found in warmer climates far from any signs of glaciation. For example, in Southern California,” notes the book Target: Earth.
• - Radiocarbon scientists admit that an “Ice Age” could have affected the radiocarbon content of the air, by changing the volume and temperature of the ocean water, but they are not sure how great these changes were. - Genesis 7:21.

Correction

Another thing is the Wooly Mamoth did not live 6 millions years ago, the world is not even that old.

The world is 4.6 billion years old. DCR

I'm with the second guy. The world is a tiny bit older then 6 millions, sry buddy

no see here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.44.230.81 (talk) 14:20, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Correction

I'm not sure what was meant, but surely this statement in the Extinction section isn't correct: "Most mammoths died out at the end of the last year." 209.191.135.126 20:13, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

That was a case of simple vandalism, which you can correct whenever you encounter it. It has now been corrected. Thankd for bringing it to our attention. Vsmith 21:57, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Supposedly a soviet courier biplane spotted a herd of mammoth in Siberia, during WWII in 1944 and even took some photos. Some year 1643 notes by russian fur trader travellers describe seeing Siberian locals hunt furry elephants. The Vrangel mini-mammoth was proven alive as of 1000BC. Don't swear that the mammoth is extinct. 81.0.79.88 21:21, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Problematic?

Pleistocene Overkill is still just a hypothesis, this article suggests that Archaeological evidence suggests that it's more than likely Mammoths were hunted to extinction by humans, despite the archaeological record suggesting otherwise.

Estonian word?

I just read that rusian word mamont (мамонт) originate from estonian langue word maamut; mаа - earth, мutt - mole.

Ukrainian mammoth village

The Ukrainian archaeological site at Mezhirich, containing houses made from mammoth skeletons, tusks, and skins (and containing a xylophone-like instrument made of mammoth scapulas) should be mentioned in the article. Badagnani 06:39, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

mammoth size

The "mammoth size" section is a bit confusing. First, how do the specs mentioned there compare to modern elephants? And I guess people want to know if the biggest of the family of woolly mammoths was bigger than modern elephants, not just that some breeds were quite small. Because that would make them the largest terrestrial mammals. I was drawn to this entry upon seeing a most astonishing photo in a compendium of photography 1850 to 1916. This was taken about 1860 (I'll have to find it again in the library) but it was absolutely perfect. The subject was a single stuffed Siberian mammoth at an exhibition, surrounded by humans. It is absolutely enormous, I believer far bigger than any living elephant I have ever seen. It did have the sloping back that was mentioned here, and the trunk seemed extraordinarily long. Wonder what happened to this specimen.

Photo would be good. Or at least some comparison diagrams with other elephants and humans for control. Problem with just showing one beast alone, is that reader doesn't know if it is as big as King Kong, or small as a puppy. Myles325a 12:46, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

The article says that the most mammoth species were of the same size of moderm elephants. In the article are 11 espcies. At least 6 of them were much larger than modern elephants.

Same question by me.Please someone explain this.--Draco ignoramus sophomoricus (talk) 14:21, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Moving content to article "Woolly mammoth"

I took the freedom to move some of the content of this article to Woolly mammoth. I gave my rationale there on the talk page. Iblardi 19:37, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

How do they know?

How do they know that Mammoth's have brown fur because that's how they're always depicted

In some frozen individuals of Woolly Mammoth, the fur was preserved; hence we know that it existed, and what colour it was. However, not all mammoth species would have been covered with fur. More southern species such as the Columbian Mammoth, living in warmer latitudes, would probably have been without insulation, like modern elephants. Iblardi 22:04, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

As Iblardi says, from direct observation of frozen specimens. In fact, it is now known that while some (woolly) mammoths had brown (or black or near-black) hair/fur, others were red or blond! This can be determined, even when tima and exposure to the elements has caused the colours to fade, by examining microscopically their hair's melanocytes, which contain melanin pigments and which by their size and distribution cause the colours and shades of, for example, mammal hair and skin. Like other scientific techniques this one is still being extended, and has recently been used to give information about the patterns and colours of long-extinct birds fossilized some 100 million years ago - see [1]. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 05:55, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Defrosting/revival

Years ago i heard Russian/Soviet scientists managed to revive and keep alive a young mammoth for 5 days. Any truth in this? --maxrspct ping me 20:53, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Scientists did find frozen corpses of mammoth calves. Are you sure you didn't mis-hear the attempt to find mammoth semen to use to fertilize an Asian elephant egg to make a mammoth-elephant hybrid?--Mr Fink (talk) 21:21, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes I possibly misheard it (back in early 90s/late 80s?) but the fertilization project you mention sounds much more recent. I read about that since millenium.. (bbc etc)last year? Was this the russians too? --maxrspct ping me 21:32, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

It was most probably just an urban legend you heard. People/animals coming back to life after being frozen is a common urban legend, even thought no large animals have ever survived being frozen for long periods of time. Ran4 (talk) 18:21, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

A group of a team of Japanese researchers are trying to collect frozen sperm from the frozen mammoths to insemiate a modern elephant to create a hybrid.--Standforder (talk) 20:32, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

There's a well-known story that Soviet natural scientists actually had Mammoth Beef on the menu at a celebratory dinner. Again, that's most likely an urban legend.Strausszek (talk) 18:35, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Not needed links

I have found some links that were not too approiate for Wikipedia. It had something to do with a website full of silly questions. Yes, it gave me a laugh but it is not scientific. I removed the link from this article. Should I have done that? Chimchar monferno (talk) 02:14, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes. See WP:BOLD and WP:EL to explain why. All the best. --Old Moonraker (talk) 06:09, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank yo for showing me thoses pages. (I feel foolish to not have read them before, but I feel glad to have done the right thing...). Chimchar monferno (talk) 03:17, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Merge the mammoths

I doubt there's enough unique information for each mammoth species (except maybe the woollies) to justify having an article for every single one of them, so shouldn't they be merged into here? FunkMonk (talk) 14:54, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Evidence please

The human evolution section is backed up with a great wikilist http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_human_evolution_fossils that displays the evidence for human evolution. I know there are a lot of mammoth fossils, but it would be great to start a similar wikilist of notable fossils. Soloist (talk) 07:25, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Revival harder than some people think

The possibility of reviving the mammoth is intriguing of course, but even if one might clone cells in the future, getting healthy and fertile individuals of the species out of the womb and growing up is still a long shot. Cloned animals like Dolly most often happen after masses of attemppts: cloned specimens are much more sensitive to diseases and genetic mishaps than normal individuals. And you know, unlike flies pr rabbits, elephants take very long time from birth to procreation. So building a sustainable herd of mammoths, part of which could be released into the wild would, in any case, take hundreds of years. Having a too small population would mean, of course, that it risked both genetic degeneration and risk of new extinction. They will be much more sensitive to infections and diseases than they were back then, because in the Ice Age they would have had a bacterial flora living in their bowels and lungs etc that was able to coexist wioth them and enhance their ability to withstand diseases. That kind of spontaneous, ingrained adaptation will be gone when they are revived, and some of it will be difficult or impossible to restore, or even to identify (how do you trace the bacterial population that once lived near/inside an animal extinct since thousands of years?) Strausszek (talk) 18:31, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Survival in the Americas

The article says "A small population survived on St. Paul Island, Alaska, up until 3,750 BC", and also says " Recent research indicates that mammoths survived in the Americas until 10,000 years ago." Which is right?

Added "mainland" (compatible with the references) as a temporary fix until a definitive answer turns up. --Old Moonraker (talk) 16:16, 8 August 2010 (UTC)