Woolly Mammoth

extinct · ice age · giant

Elephant cousin. The woolly mammoth's closest living relative is the Asian elephant. They share a family tree that goes back millions of years.

Built for cold. Woolly mammoths lived during the Ice Age, surviving icy lands from the Middle Pleistocene until they died out in the Holocene epoch.

African beginnings. Mammoths actually began in Africa with an early species, then later types spread north into places like Siberia.

Mixing with cousins. In North America, woolly mammoths lived alongside Columbian mammoths, and DNA studies show the two even hybridised with each other.

Mystery solved. For ages, people found mammoth remains and thought they belonged to legendary creatures. In 1796, scientist Georges Cuvier proved they were an extinct kind of elephant.