Claudia Herrera i Adriana Lacaita

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MAMMOTH

DESCRIPTION

• A mammoth is any species of the extinct genus Mammuthus. They are members of the family of elephants and mammoths, and close relatives of modern elephants. They lived from the Pliocene epoch from around 4.8 million to 4,500 years ago.The word mammoth comes from the Russian мамонт meaning "earth horn"

SIZE • Like their modern relative the elephant,

mammoths were quite large; in English the noun "mammoth" has become an adjective meaning "large" or "massive". The largest known species, Songhua River mammoth (Mammuthus sungari) reached heights of at least 5 metres at the shoulder. Mammoths would probably normally weigh in the region of 6 to 8 tons, but exceptionally large males may have exceeded 12 tons.

ADAPTATION TO THE COLD

• Some of the obvious adaptations of the woolly mammoth to its cold, snowy environment were its long hair (which insulated its body and kept it warm), its long tusks (which it used to get food through the snow and ice, and also may have been used as protection), its small ears (which minimized heat loss), and its relatively large size (which also minimized heat loss).

MAMMOTHS AND THE BABIES

• Based on studies of their close relatives the modern elephants, mammoths probably had a gestation period of 22 months

EXTINCTION

• Until recently, it was generally assumed that the last woolly mammoths disappeared from Europe and southern Siberia about 10,000 BC, but new studies show that some were still present there about 8,000 BC. Only a little bit later, the woolly mammoths also disappeared from continental northern Siberia.A small population survived on St. Paul Island, Alaska, up until 3,750 BC,and the small mammoths of Wrangel Island survived until 1,650 BC.

REASONS FOR EXTINCTION

• Whether the general mammoth population died out for climatic reasons or due to overhunting by humans is a matter of opinions. Another theory suggests that mammoths may have been victims of an infectious disease. A combination of climate change and hunting by humans has been suggested as the most likely explanation for their extinction.

DISCOVERING THE PAST

• In May 2007, the outside of a one-month-old female woolly mammoth was discovered in a layer of permafrost near the Yuribei River in Russia, where it had been buried for 37,000 years.

PICTURES

WEB SITES USED

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammothhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammoth