My idea of the woolly mammoth is limited to the voice of Ray Romano and the unusual pairing with a sloth and sabre-tooth tiger in the Ice Age movie franchise. Woolly mammoths hold a special place in the part of the human brain that thinks about extinct species, where they jostle for space with dinosaurs and the dodo. But in reality, the woolly mammoth was alive 5 million years ago, with species existing across Africa, Europe, Asia and North America.
Woolly mammoths and elephants are related. However, they look very different and have unique histories. Although related, there are several key differences between woolly mammoths and elephants - other than mammoths are extinct while elephants are not. As for how else the mammoth differs from modern elephants, we’re in luck, because we know a lot more about it compared to many extinct animals. Let’s find out what similarities and differences they share!
It’s worth remembering that they were still going when humans started recording their lives on the walls of caves. Today all of the woolly mammoths are extinct. The key differences between a woolly mammoth vs elephant are their appearance, history, species, and habitat.
Elephants and mammoths are closely related animals, belonging to the same order: Elephantidae, which is part of a larger group called the Proboscidea .Mammoths and elephants belong to the same order: Elephantidae. This order contains mammoths, African elephants and Asian elephants. Of the three families in this order, Asian Elephants, African Elephants, and Mammoths, only the elephant family is still alive today.
Woolly mammoths and elephants have each existed alongside humans. It is likely that mammoths used their tusks in a similar fashion and that their behavior was similar. Which is perhaps a little surprising as there’s no shortage of spectacular extinct elephants out there.
A modern-day woolly mammoth may be just a few years away, biotech company says
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Both elephants and woolly mammoths belong to a group called proboscideans. Proboscideans include an order of afrotherian mammals. The order consists of extinct relatives of the elephant and modern-day elephants. Woolly mammoths and elephants are very similar creatures, and they even descended from the same ancestor long ago! However, they do have distinct differences-mainly due to the ways mammoths adapted to cooler environments.
Appearance and Adaptations
Since they don’t live in the same frigid temperatures as their mammoth relatives, elephants look very different. The woolly mammoth coexisted with early humans, who hunted the species for food and used their bones and tusks for making art, tools and dwellings. Here is why woolly mammoths vs.
A key difference between mammoths vs. elephants is their appearance. If you’ve ever seen an elephant, you know that they have very thin layers of short, coarse hair-it may even look like they don’t have fur at all. You couldn’t say this about a mammoth. They had thick fur to adapt to cold environments. To stay warm, the woolly mammoth had two layers of fur. The outer layer was shaggy and could be as long as 20 in.
Some of them even had double coats to keep them warm through harsh winters. These thick, heavy coats allowed mammoths to live in very cold areas and thrive where their cousins would have frozen. However, those same thick coats meant that they could not handle the hotter temperatures as their climate warmed. The colour of their coat varied from dark to light.
Woolly mammoths had tiny ears to help prevent frostbite. The small ears may have made it easy for them to maintain their core body temperature. Mammoths had the smallest ears of all because larger ears are at risk of frostbite in freezing weather and use too much body heat to keep warm. African Elephants have longer ears than either the Asian elephant or mammoth. These large ears help dissipate so that the animal stays cooler in hot weather. They also use their large, flexible ears to keep files off their face. Asian elephants have smaller, more rounded ears.
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They also had a distinguishable lump on their back. The lump probably worked like a camel hump, storing fat for when food sources were scarce. Mammoths had humps on their back near their shoulders, but elephants do not have this.
One of the woolly mammoths’ most distinctive features is their enormous tusks. Modern elephants have impressive tusks, but they’re not nearly as long. Mammoths were heavier than elephants, with much longer tusks. Their tusks were more curved and twisted than elephant tusks and could grow up to 16 feet long. In comparison, the longest-ever elephant tusks were 11 feet and 7 inches in length.
When it comes to their trunks, both African elephants and mammoths have (or had) two extensions from the tips of their trunk that are (or were) used for gripping. Asian elephants have only one. These prehensile extensions are very sensitive and capable of fine motor skills. Another important variation exists only in Asian elephants: the females do not have tusks at all. Both sexes of mammoths had tusks as do African elephants. These are mainly used for defense, though males also use them in dominance fights.
Despite their name, woolly mammoths didn’t always have a mammoth size. They usually have sizes comparable to African elephants. The typical African elephant weighs around 2.5 to 7 tons. Amazingly, woolly mammoths weren’t much larger than elephants as we know them today. Elephants usually have a maximum weight of 6 tons-the same size as a fully grown woolly mammoth. The Columbian mammoth reached 4 meters tall at the shoulders. Research shows that it was larger than earlier mammoth species such as the Mammuthus trogontherii. It was also bigger than the woolly mammoth and the modern African elephant both of which reached 2. 7 to 3.4 meters tall.
Mammoths and Asian elephants also have more distinctive foreheads. They both have/had a distinctly domed forehead while African elephant foreheads slope straight downward into the trunk. There is a much less visible dividing structure between the head and trunk of the African elephant.
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The male Columbian mammoth was generally larger than the female. Like other mammoths, the Columbian mammoth had a high single domed head with a high shoulder hump. This shape resulted in the back vertebrae decreasing in length from the front to the rear.
African elephants have thick skin - 2.5 cm thick in most places. They have wrinkles and folds on the skin that retain up to 10 times more water than flat skin. This helps to keep them cool. The Columbian mammoth was a savanna inhabitant, unlike the woolly mammoth. Since it was a savanna inhabitant, its skin was no thicker than that of present-day African elephants. The skin measured 1.25 to 2.5 cm in thickness and had a layer of fat up to 10 cm thick under the skin. This helped to keep the animal warm in cold environments.
Woolly mammoth’s evolved from hundreds of years of interbreeding and genome adaptations. Their Siberian ancestors gave them the genes needed to survive cold temperatures.
Figure 1: Comparison of the Mammoth lineage and modern-day elephants.
Historical Context and Habitat
Elephants have a more extended history. Eritherium is the most primitive elephant ancestor known to scientists. The ancient relative was much smaller than elephants as we know them today and closely resembled a tapir. Eritherium is also a term to describe the genus of early proboscideans. What came first, mammoths or elephants? Many people have always asked themselves this question, and today, they can finally find out the answer. Scientists discovered that the earliest mammoths originated from the tropical environments of Africa.
Going back over 1 million years, Siberian Steppe Mammoths are the woolly mammoths’ ancestors. The Siberian Mammoth had the genetic adaptations necessary for living in freezing temperatures. Then about 440,000 years later, woolly mammoths and Asian elephants became separate species. About 6 million years African elephants became a distinct species.
When did woolly mammoths run the tundra of North America, Asia, and Europe? Theywere alive around 300,000 years ago. During the ice ages, woolly mammoths lived in frigid environments. You could find woolly mammoths on the arid steppe tundra in the far north. Woolly mammoths could be found on the flat tundra and grasslands just south of ice sheets.
The woolly, Northern or Siberian mammoth, species name Mammuthus primigenius, is a species of mammoth that lived during the Pleistocene epoch. During the Pleistocene era, large numbers of woolly mammoths roamed the forests and tundra of Siberia. In Siberia, these mammoths would graze on steppe grasses along with bison and other large herbivores.
Woolly mammoths were particularly fond of riverine environments, similar to elephants today. Elephants like water so much, that one woman was surprised when an enormous, curious elephant came to her pool! But pools aren’t their usual stomping grounds. Instead, forests, grasslands, savannahs, highlands, and swamps are where elephants live. Savannah elephants can be found roaming the plains of Saharan Africa. Forest elephants thrive in the shaded forest of West and Central Africa.
Around 100,000 years ago, North America was home to two types of mammoths. The Columbian mammoths were living as far south as Mexico. There were also woolly mammoths living in the north.
Unlike the African and Asian elephants which restricted their movement, mammoths traveled far in the world. This ancient bridge linked Alaska and modern-day Siberia more than 1.7 million years ago. The Columbian mammoth went on to occupy North America while the woolly mammoth arrived much later from Eurasia.
Today, scientists classify mammoths as follows:
- Mammuthus columbi (Columbian mammoth)
- Mammuthus primigenius (Woolly mammoth)
Extinction and Survival
What’s going on with this woolly mammoth vs. elephant debate? Woolly mammoths haven’t walked the Earth for nearly 4,000 years, and their numbers were declining long before they finally went extinct. Mammoths have been extinct for at least 4,000 years. The major difference between these species is that only one is living. Mammoths went extinct around 4,000 years ago in large part thanks to a rapidly changing climate and hunting from humans spreading across the globe.
The majority of woolly mammoths went extinct around 10,000 years ago. There’s evidence of a group of woolly mammoths surviving until 1650 BC. African forest elephant numbers have declined by over 86% in the past 31 years, while African savanna elephants have decreased by 60% over the last 50 years. Both cases have resulted from poaching and habitat loss. Meanwhile, Asian elephants are endangered due to habitat loss, fragmentation, and poaching. There are only an estimated 30,000 to 50,000 left in the wild.
Elephants, the largest land mammals on Earth, are unfortunately facing the same threat of extinction that the woolly mammoth succumbed to in ages past. Mammoths were adapted to an ice-age climate and they died out as their habitat dwindled as the world warmed. Elephants, and many other species, are at a similar risk of extinction today from the same problems: a warming climate and too much pressure from humans. This pressure comes from hunting and from loss of habitat that elephants can survive in.
Elephants are still alive today, although all species of elephants are threatened. Asian elephants are on the endangered species list while African bush elephants are endangered and African forest elephants are now critically endangered.
Unfortunately, like many animals, mammoths became extinct roughly 10,000 years ago due to a warming climate and widespread human hunting. To this day, scientists are still divided over whether hunting or climate change was the main factor that contributed to extinction, or whether it was a combination of the two. Most woolly mammoths became extinct in the Holocene epoch around 10,000 years ago at the end of the last ice age. A warming climate and hunting by humans finished off mainland populations about 10,000 years ago.
Woolly mammoths roamed the Earth for around 5 million years and survived several ice ages. Scientists believe that climate played a significant role. Their demise wasn’t human-driven, even though humans did hunt and eat mammoths, in addition to making use of their bones, tusks and skin. From cave art and archaeological finds, we know humans and mammoths lived together for some time. With the onset of genetic exploration, it became easier to answer why woolly mammals disappeared. Research shows that when the icebergs melted during the last ice age, the environment became too wet for the mammoths. This was mainly due to the depletion of vegetation, their main food source. Some mammoths survived, but their genes had mutated. Studies suggest that elephants, however, adapted better.
However, isolated populations managed to survive for thousands of years after that on St. Paul Island in the Bering Sea and Wrangel Island in the Arctic Ocean. The Wrangel Island population were isolated by rising post-ice-age sea levels and were the last mammoths to go extinct, disappearing roughly 4,000 years ago. By comparing the Wrangel Island mammoth’s DNA to that of two older mammoths, as well three Asian elephants, researchers recently found a collection of deleterious genetic mutations in the Wrangel Island mammoth. The population was so small and isolated that it led to inbreeding and ultimately the loss of genetic diversity.
Proposed causes of extinction include environmental and climate change disease, and human predation. In Canada, mammoths became extinct by the end of the Pleistocene epoch about 10,000 years ago. During the Ice Age, glaciers moved across Canada eroding much of the fossil record of large Ice Age animals including mammoths. Today, the record of mammoths is mostly made up of pieces of skeleton found in areas that were not impacted by glacial movement.
Both African and Asian elephants are alive today. About 415,000 African elephants are roaming the plains of Africa. However, due to poaching, there have been significant declines over the past six decades. As such, poaching is steering the African elephant species dangerously towards extinction.
The Asian elephant is also classified as endangered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.
De-Extinction and Future Possibilities
What if wooly mammoths made a comeback? Woolly Mammoth vs. A hybrid form of woolly mammoth and elephant could be possible. It is known as de-extinction - the bringing back of lost species. DNA editing tools have made it feasible to create an animal similar to the woolly mammoth. As scientists have become skilled at extracting DNA, they have found DNA from woolly mammoths that may be a million years old. Creating a mammoth hybrid may sound exciting.
In 2015, with a mission to enhance biodiversity, Revive & Restore launched the Woolly Mammoth Revival Project. The goal of the project, led by Harvard geneticist George Church, is to bring back this extinct species and re-populate the vast tundra and forest in Eurasia and North America. The team will use advanced technologies to re-engineer a creature with the genes from the woolly mammoth.
Colossal is a bioscience and genetic-engineering organization founded by Harvard geneticist George Church and entrepreneur Ben Lamm. Colossal gives several pertinent reasons for bringing back the woolly mammoth.
- Decelerated melting of the arctic permafrost.
- Repopulating the Artic with large animals.
They suggest the new mammoths could populate the permafrost and turn wet tundra into dry grasslands. More grasslands would be created as these animals knock down trees. Any newly introduced animal is likely to upset existing ecosystems. Many plants woolly mammoths ate no longer exist.
Church’s team are focussing on manipulating the genome of the Asian elephant, which is the mammoth’s closest living evolutionary relative. The team have been using CRISPR genome engineering tools to insert DNA from the mammoth genome into living elephant cell cultures. So far, the team have rewritten a number of genes into Asian elephant cell lines, including mutations for mammoth haemoglobin, extra hair growth, fat production and cold resistance. The group are also interested in exploring the non-protein coding mutations and how they are important for adaptation to cold climates. Once these traits appear sufficiently in stem cell derived tissues, the Church Lab will begin experiments to generate embryos, possibly through stem cell embryogenesis to avoid using elephants as surrogate mothers.
Research by Dr. Sergey Zimov shows promise that the tundra can be converted back to grassland with the introduction of grazers. Zimov founded the Pleistocene Park in 1996, a fifty square mile wide nature reserve in the Siberian Arctic, where he hopes woolly mammoths will roam again. Artic grasslands not only support higher biodiversity and abundance, but there is growing evidence to suggest that grazing, compaction and disturbance effects caused by these large herbivores enables deeper freezing of permafrost. The grasses insulate the permafrost from melting and thus prevents the release of greenhouse gases.
There is a wealth of information to be gained from ancient DNA. Genomes hold historic information about adaptation to survive across extreme conditions. Unlocking this information and discovering its functional effects within living cells can provide insights that could be useful to treat human diseases or for future space exploration.
The technologies and tools used to pursue this project will enhance our understanding and ability to conserve elephant species. Since then, other projects have compared the genomes of mammoths with that of the African and Asian elephants.
Figure 3: Elephant cell being studied in the Church lab.
Conservation Implications and Ethical Considerations
Although de-extinction projects have positive intentions, they are ultimately subject to a host of debate. Revive & Restore, alongside the woolly mammoth project, has a range of other projects working on both extinct species, such as the carrier pigeon, and other vulnerable species, like the Black-footed ferret. While there are concerns that we may not be able to control the spread of genes, one of the biggest concerns is that people will no longer fear extinction. These types of projects could potentially undermine conservation efforts, with the public feeling less responsible for their behaviour and actions that ultimately contribute to global warming and biodiversity loss.
Others have also raised concerns that these hybrids may not be able survive in the Arctic because they are genetically different from extinct mammoths. We also do not fully understand the dynamics of the ecosystem back then - particularly the microbes that may have existed at the time. In addition, these animals often roamed in herds to learn survival skills. All together, these factors could lead to the ‘elemoths’ behaving unpredictably in their environment.
Regardless, as our tools improve every day, de-extinction is becoming an increasing reality. We are entering a time where these futuristic and so-called ‘mad scientist’ ideas are becoming tangible. As a result, we can no longer avoid these important conversations and we must start thinking what we will do once these technologies become successful and applicable.
Table 1: Comparison of Woolly Mammoth and African Elephant Characteristics
| Characteristic | Woolly Mammoth | African Elephant |
|---|---|---|
| Habitat | Cold, icy tundra and grasslands | Savannas, forests, and grasslands |
| Fur | Thick, double-layered fur | Thin, sparse hair |
| Ears | Small to prevent frostbite | Large to dissipate heat |
| Tusks | Long and curved (up to 16 feet) | Shorter and less curved (up to 11.7 feet) |
| Size | Comparable to African elephants | Largest land animal |
| Extinction Status | Extinct | Endangered/Vulnerable |
