This list of Mammoth specimens covers mammoth remains which are either notable in their history or preservation. Mass accumulations of mammoth remains are included in the latter portion of this list.
Name | Image | Location of discovery | Date of discovery | Age of remains in radiocarbon years BP | Comments |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Adams mammoth | Mouth of the Lena River, Siberia [1] | 1799 [1] [2] | 35,800±1200 [1] [3] | It is the first complete mammoth skeleton ever to be reconstructed. Originally, it was an entire mummified mammoth carcass. [2] | |
Beresovka Mammoth | Berezovka River, Siberia [4] | 1900 [4] | 44,000±3,500 [4] | Except for head, it is an almost wholly preserved, mummified mammoth carcass. [4] | |
Fairbanks Creek Mammoth (Effie) [5] | Fairbanks Creek near Fairbanks, Alaska [5] | 1948 [5] | 21,300±1,300 [5] [6] | It consists of the mummified head, trunk, and left forelimb of a mammoth calf. It was recovered from muck near prehistoric scraper. [5] | |
Fishhook Mammoth [7] | Shoreline banks of the estuary of the Upper Taimyra River, Taymyr Peninsula, Siberian Federal District. [7] | 1990-1992 [7] | 20,620±70 [7] | Partial woolly mammoth carcass [7] | |
Jarkov Mammoth [8] [9] | Taymyr Peninsula, Siberian Federal District [9] [8] | July 1997 [8] | 20,390±160 [8] | Found by members of the Jarkov family, who are Dolgan reindeer herders. [8] | |
Kirgilyakh (Magadan) Mammoth (Dima) [8] [10] | Northeast Siberia, near Kirgilyakh Creek in the Upper Kolyma basin [8] [10] | June 23, 1977 [10] | 41,000±900 [10] | The discovery of the frozen carcass of the Kirgilyakh (Magadan) Mammoth or Dima provided the first opportunity for a detailed study of the anatomy of a mammoth calf. [10] | |
Lyuba Mammoth [11] [12] | Near the Yuribei River on the Yamal Peninsula in northwest Siberia. [11] [12] | May 2007 [11] | 41,700+700/-550 [11] | Lyuba is regarded to be the most complete and best-preserved mammoth calf discovered. It is nicknamed Lyuba after the diminutive of the name of the wife of the reindeer herder who discovered it. [11] [12] | |
Malolyakhovsky Mammoth [13] Buttercup [14] | Maly Lyakhovsky Island of the New Siberian Islands archipelago [13] | 2012 [13] | 28,610±110 [13] | While many mammoths found in permafrost are dried up and mummified, “this was really juicy,” said Herridge, who likened the appearance of the muscle to a “piece of steak — bright red when you cut into the flesh and then as it hit the air, it would go brown.” [15] | |
Yuka Mammoth [16] [17] | Oyagossky Yar coast, 30 km west from the mouth of the Kondratieva River near Yukagir, Siberia. [17] | August 2010 [17] | 34,300+260/−240 [17] | The Yuka mammoth corpse consists of about 95% of its hide, and soft tissues around limbs were preserved in articulated position. This female mammoth calf was nicknamed ‘Yuka’ after the village of Yukagir, whose local people discovered it. [16] [17] | |
Sopkarga Mammoth (Zhenya) [18] [19] | Taymyr Peninsula, Siberian Federal District [18] | August 28, 2012 [18] [19] | 43,350±240 [19] | The Sopkarga Mammoth (Zhenya) was found on the right bank of the Yenisei River about 3 km north of the Sopochnaya Karga Meteorological Station on Sopochnaya Karga Cape. Zhenya is the diminutive of the name of the 11-year-old boy who discovered it. [18] [19] | |
Khroma Mammoth [20] | Allaikhovskii District, Yakutia, Khroma River [20] | October 2008 [20] | greater than 45,000 [21] | Khroma is very well preserved excepting the absence of trunk. [20] | |
Yukagir mammoth | Northern Yakutia, Arctic Siberia, Russia | Autumn of 2002 | 22,500 cal. BP [22] | Notably well-preserved head, which revealed that woolly mammoths had temporal glands between the ear and the eye [22] | |
Nun cho ga mammoth | Yukon, Trʼondëk Hwëchʼin First Nation, Canada | June 21, 2022 | greater than 30,000. [23] [24] [25] | Considered the most complete mummified mammoth found in North America, and only the second such find in the world of a calf since Effie (1948). Also roughly same size as Lyuba (2007). [23] [25] |
Name | Image | Location of discovery | Date of discovery | Age of remains in years BP | Comments |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Achchagyi–Allaikha mass accumulation [26] [27] | Achchagyi–Allaikha stream, Yana-Indighirka coastal lowlands, Siberia. [27] [28] | 1987 [27] | 12,490±80 to 12,400±60 BP., C14 [27] | The concentration of bones in the Achchagyi–Allaikha mass accumulation was likely result from the simultaneous deaths of a large number of animals within herd-family groups in one or several seasons. The formation of this mass accumulation is argued to be a direct consequence of short but strong climatic warming (Bølling oscillation) and associated unfavorable environmental conditions. [27] | |
Berelyokh mass accumulation [26] [27] [28] | Byoryolyokh River, Yana-Indighirka coastal lowlands, Siberia. [27] [28] | 1947 [28] | 12,720±100 to 11,900±50 BP., C14 [27] | The concentration of bones in the Berelyokh mass accumulation was likely result from the simultaneous deaths of a large number of animals within herd-family groups in one or several seasons. The formation of this mass accumulation is argued to be a direct consequence of short but strong climatic warming (Bølling oscillation) and associated unfavorable environmental conditions. [27] [28] | |
Condover site [29] | Norton Farm Pit, Condover, south of Shrewsbury, United kingdom [29] | 1986 [29] | circa 12,300 BP., C14, Greenland Interstadial 1 [29] | Remains of several mammoths trapped in glacial kettle-hole [29] | |
The Mammoth Site [30] | Hot Springs, South Dakota [30] [31] [32] | 1974 [30] [31] | Greater than 26,000 B.P, C14 [32] | As of 2016, the remains of 58 North American Columbian and 3 woolly mammoths have been found within pond sediments filling an ancient sinkhole. [31] [32] | |
Waco Mammoth National Monument [33] [34] | Waco, Texas [33] | 1978 [33] | 66,800±5,000 BP, calendar [35] | As of 2016, two bone beds have yielded 25 Columbian mammoths along with the remains of other co-existing fauna. [34] | |
Mammoth central [36] | Santa Lucía, Mexico | 2020 [37] [38] | 10,000 to 20,000 | As of 2020, at least 200 Columbian mammoths have been uncovered as well as 25 camels and five horses. | |
A mammoth is any species of the extinct elephantid genus Mammuthus. The various species of mammoth were commonly equipped with long, curved tusks. They lived from the Pliocene epoch into the Holocene about 4,000 years ago, and various species existed in Africa, Europe, Asia, and North America. Mammoths are more closely related to living Asian elephants than African elephants.
Elephantidae is a family of large, herbivorous proboscidean mammals collectively called elephants and mammoths. These are large terrestrial mammals with a snout modified into a trunk and teeth modified into tusks. Most genera and species in the family are extinct. Only two genera, Loxodonta and Elephas, are living.
The woolly rhinoceros is an extinct species of rhinoceros that inhabited northern Eurasia during the Pleistocene epoch. The woolly rhinoceros was a member of the Pleistocene megafauna. The woolly rhinoceros was covered with long, thick hair that allowed it to survive in the extremely cold, harsh mammoth steppe. It had a massive hump reaching from its shoulder and fed mainly on herbaceous plants that grew in the steppe. Mummified carcasses preserved in permafrost and many bone remains of woolly rhinoceroses have been found. Images of woolly rhinoceroses are found among cave paintings in Europe and Asia. The species range contracted towards Siberia beginning around 17,000 years ago, with the youngest known records being around 14,000 years old in northeast Siberia, coinciding with the Bølling–Allerød warming, which likely disrupted its habitat.
The New Siberian Islands are an archipelago in the Extreme North of Russia, to the north of the East Siberian coast between the Laptev Sea and the East Siberian Sea north of the Sakha (Yakutia) Republic, of which they are administratively a part.
Maly Lyakhovsky Island is the second largest of the Lyakhovsky Islands belonging to the New Siberian Islands archipelago in Laptev Sea in northern Russia. It has an area of 975.5 km2 (376.6 sq mi).
The steppe bison or steppe wisent is an extinct species of bison that was once found on the mammoth steppe where its range included British Isles, Europe, Central Asia, Northern to Northeastern Asia including the Japanese archipelago, Beringia, and central North America, from northwest Canada to Mexico during the Quaternary. This wide distribution is sometimes called the Pleistocene bison belt, compared to the Great bison belt. It is ancestral to modern American bison. Three chronological subspecies, Bison priscus priscus, Bison priscus mediator, and Bison priscus gigas, have been suggested.
The pygmy mammoth or Channel Islands mammoth is an extinct species of dwarf elephant native to the northern Channel Islands off the coast of California. It was descended from the Columbian mammoth of mainland North America.
The Columbian mammoth is an extinct species of mammoth that inhabited the Americas as far north as the Northern United States and as far south as Costa Rica during the Pleistocene epoch. The Columbian mammoth descended from Eurasian mammoths that colonised North America during the Early Pleistocene around 1.5-1.3 million years ago, and later experienced hybridisation with the woolly mammoth lineage. The Columbian mammoth was among the last mammoth species, and the pygmy mammoths evolved from them on the Channel Islands of California. The closest extant relative of the Columbian and other mammoths is the Asian elephant.
During the Last Glacial Maximum, the mammoth steppe, also known as steppe-tundra, was once the Earth's most extensive biome. It stretched east-to-west, from the Iberian Peninsula in the west of Europe, across Eurasia to North America, through Beringia and Canada; from north-to-south, the steppe reached from the arctic islands southward to China. The mammoth steppe was cold and dry, and relatively featureless, though topography and geography varied considerably throughout. Some areas featured rivers which, through erosion, naturally created gorges, gulleys, or small glens. The continual glacial recession and advancement over millennia contributed more to the formation of larger valleys and different geographical features. Overall, however, the steppe is known to be flat and expansive grassland. The vegetation was dominated by palatable, high-productivity grasses, herbs and willow shrubs.
The Chibanian, widely known as the Middle Pleistocene, is an age in the international geologic timescale or a stage in chronostratigraphy, being a division of the Pleistocene Epoch within the ongoing Quaternary Period. The Chibanian name was officially ratified in January 2020. It is currently estimated to span the time between 0.770 Ma and 0.126 Ma, also expressed as 770–126 ka. It includes the transition in palaeoanthropology from the Lower to the Middle Paleolithic over 300 ka.
The straight-tusked elephant is an extinct species of elephant that inhabited Europe and Western Asia during the Middle and Late Pleistocene. Recovered individuals have reached up to 3.81–4.2 metres (12.5–13.8 ft) in shoulder height, and an estimated 11.3–15 tonnes in weight. Like modern elephants, the straight-tusked elephant lived in herds, flourishing during interglacial periods, when its range would extend as far north as Great Britain. Skeletons found in association with stone tools and wooden spears suggest they were scavenged and hunted by early humans, including Neanderthals. It is the ancestral species of most dwarf elephants that inhabited islands in the Mediterranean.
Mammuthus trogontherii, sometimes called the steppe mammoth, is an extinct species of mammoth that ranged over most of northern Eurasia during the Early and Middle Pleistocene, approximately 1.7 million-200,000 years ago. One of the largest mammoth species, it evolved in East Asia during the Early Pleistocene, around 1.8 million years ago, before migrating into North America around 1.5 million years ago, and into Europe during the Early/Middle Pleistocene transition, around 1 to 0.7 million years ago. It was the ancestor of the woolly mammoth and Columbian mammoth of the later Pleistocene.
The Sopkarga mammoth, alternately spelled Sopkarginsky mammoth, and informally called Zhenya, after the nickname of its discoverer, is a woolly mammoth carcass found in October 2012. It was discovered 3 kilometres (2 mi) away from the Sopkarga polar weather station on the Taymyr Peninsula in Russia. The Moscow News refers to it as the best preserved mammoth find in the past 100 years.
Lyuba is a female woolly mammoth calf who died c. 41,800 years ago at the age of 30 to 35 days. She was formerly the best preserved mammoth mummy in the world, surpassing Dima, a male mammoth calf mummy which had previously been the best known specimen.
The woolly mammoth is an extinct species of mammoth that lived during the Pleistocene until its extinction in the Holocene epoch. It was one of the last in a line of mammoth species, beginning with the African Mammuthus subplanifrons in the early Pliocene. The woolly mammoth began to diverge from the steppe mammoth about 800,000 years ago in East Asia. Its closest extant relative is the Asian elephant. The Columbian mammoth lived alongside the woolly mammoth in North America, and DNA studies show that the two hybridised with each other.
The Mammoth Site is a museum and paleontological site near Hot Springs, South Dakota, in the Black Hills. It is an active paleontological excavation site at which research and excavations are continuing. The facility encloses a prehistoric sinkhole that formed and was slowly filled with sediments during the Pleistocene era. The sedimentary fill of the sinkhole contains the remains of Pleistocene fauna and flora preserved by entrapment and burial within a sinkhole. As of 2016, the remains of 61 mammoths, including 58 North American Columbian and 3 woolly mammoths had been recovered. Mammoth bones were found at the site in 1974, and a museum and building enclosing the site were established. The museum now contains an extensive collection of mammoth remains.
The Jarkov Mammoth, is a woolly mammoth specimen discovered on the Taymyr Peninsula of Siberia by a nine-year-old boy in 1997. This particular mammoth is estimated to have lived about 20,000 years ago. It is likely to be male and probably died at age 47.
Dick "Sir Mammoth" Mol is a Dutch paleontologist - a specialist in the field of mammoths for almost three decades. He is a research associate of several museums. Mol's primary focus is on mammals of the Quaternary period, including mammoths and extinct rhinoceros species.
Yuka is the best-preserved woolly mammoth carcass ever found. It was discovered by local Siberian tusk hunters in August 2010. They turned it over to local scientists, who made an initial assessment of the carcass in 2012. It is displayed in Moscow.
The Yukagir Mammoth is a frozen adult male woolly mammoth specimen found in the autumn of 2002 in northern Yakutia, Arctic Siberia, Russia, and is considered to be an exceptional discovery. The nickname refers to the Siberian village near where it was found.
The well-preserved mammoth, nicknamed Buttercup, was discovered buried in the ice on Maily Lyakhovsky Island in May 2013.