What kind of animal is a mammoth?

Mammoth is an extinct elephant animal that lived from the late Miocene to the late Pleistocene, about 5 million to 4,000 years ago. Mammoths are very large animals, with a body length of 5-6 meters, a shoulder height of 3-4 meters, and a weight of 7-8 tons.

Mammoths are herbivores and feed mainly on grass, leaves, shrubs, etc. It is characterized by a pair of very long tusks, which can reach 3-4 meters in length, becoming one of their most famous features. The tusks are not only used for digging for food, but also for attacking each other or protecting themselves.

Mammoths have a very wide distribution range on the earth, including species that survive in the cold Arctic regions, such as the alpaca mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius), and species that survive in the warm south, such as the southern mammoth (Mammuthus meridionalis). However, with the influence of climate change and human activities, mammoths gradually became extinct and completely disappeared from the surface of the earth about 4,000 years ago.

The cause of the mammoth's extinction is not entirely clear, but may be related to climate change, human hunting, disease and other factors. Now, scientists are still studying mammoth remains and genes to explore how this giant animal lived and disappeared.

animal tags： Mammoth