MAMMOTH. The name mammoth is supposed to be derived from an old Russian word given by ivory-hunters to an extinct elephant, Elephas primigenius. The animal is an elephant (q.v.) about the same size as the existing Indian form, characterized by possessing a short, high and pointed skull, which supports a pair of tusks unique in their spiral curvature, the roots diverging from one another, the middle part of the tusks turning upwards and outwards, and the tips being directed towards one another. This fully developed tusk only occurs in old individuals, the young tusks being similar to those of an Indian elephant. Mammoth tusks, although they may be extremely long, possibly reaching a maximum length of 1 o ft. 6 in. from the socket, are usually rather slender, and must from their shape have been incapable of being used as pickaxes, as are those of an Indian elephant. The tusks of the frozen mammoths of Siberia are so well preserved that they can still be used industrially and the animals were so abundant that fossil ivory has been exported from Siberia to China and to Europe from mediaeval times.
The molar teeth of the mammoth are very variable in character but the number of plates is always large from 14-16 in the second molars and from 18-27 in the third molars. The teeth are very deep and wide so that in the dentition the mammoth reached per haps the highest point in the evolution of the elephants.
The mammoth is found only in Pleistocene times and is in Europe always associated with a fauna whose character indicates a cold or arctic climate. When, as in England, warm interglacial periods intervened, the mammoth and his associates migrated to the north, following the retreating ice-field, and his place was taken by the straight tusked Elephas antiques.
The mammoth was hunted by late Palaeolithic man who has left drawings and statuettes representing the animal in French caves. From these drawings it is apparent that the creature was covered with hair so long that it almost reached the ground, and that the body was produced into a great hump at the back of the neck; the ear was small. The accuracy of these drawings has been
confirmed by the evidence afforded by frozen mammoths dis covered in the tundra of north-eastern Siberia. These animals owe their preservation to the fact that, owing to their great weight, they became bogged in marshy plains, sinking down into ice cold mud, which subsequently became frozen and has so remained ever since. From these specimens we have learnt that the whole body was covered with an undercoat of yellowish brown woolly hair through which projected long black thicker hairs which formed patches on the cheeks, flanks, abdomen, etc. The tail is short and like that of a modern elephant, provided with a terminal tuft of long, stiff bristles. The small ears were covered with fur.
The food has been found in the stomach and mouth of frozen individuals and in the most recently reported case might have been gathered in north-eastern Siberia to-day. It consisted mainly of grasses and sedges, but also wild thyme, the Alpine poppy and upright crowfoot. Thus the mammoth alone of elephants became adapted to life in cold climates. It is not known when the mam moth became extinct, but it survived in France into Magdalenian times, that is to the extreme end of the glacial period. It may have lived on in Siberia to a much more recent period.
Closely related to the mammoth are several species of elephant found in Europe, India and North America. These animals were apparently inhabitants of warmer countries. They are first known in India in such forms as Elephas hysudricus, and wandered from thence not only throughout southern Europe and Asia, but even into America. In America these southern mammoths attained a gigantic size, Elephas imperator being perhaps the largest of all elephants, attaining a height of some 14 feet. (D. M. S. W.)