The Woolly Mammoths

The woolly mammoth is a close cousin of the modern elephant. Its size was similar to the African elephant, males reaching shoulder height of about 3 m (10 ft) and weighing up to 6 tonnes.

The mammoths had a plant-based diet and a fully grown male would need to eat about 180 kg (400 lb) of food daily.

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A prejudiced interpretation of the hairy and fatty nature of the creature, and a belief in unchanging climatic conditions led scientists to deem the woolly mammoth a creature of cold areas of our planet. But furry animals don't necessarily live in a cold climate - see, for example, desert animals like camels, kangaroos and fennecs. They are furry and they live in hot or temperate climate

Woolly mammoth "wool", Naturhistorisches Museum Wien

s. In fact, most furry animals could not survive arctic weather.

What makes for successful cold adaptation is not fur per se but its erectile nature which traps a layer of air for thermal insulation against the cold. Unlike the fur seal for example, mammoths were devoid of erectile fur.

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The above clearly shows that fur is not a proof of cold-adaptation and neither is fat. Fat only proves that food is plentiful. A fat, overfed dog could not withstand an arctic blizzard and its -80F (-60° Celsius) temperatures. On the contrary, creatures like arctic rabbits or caribous can, despite their relative low fat to body mass ratio.

Mammoths remains are usually found piled up with other animals, like tiger, antelope, camel, horse, reindeer, giant beaver, giant ox, musk sheep, musk ox, donkey, badger, ibex, woolly rhinoceros, fox, giant bison, lynx, leopard, wolverine, hare, lion, elk, giant wolf, ground squirrel, cave hyena, bear, and many types of birds. Most of those animals could not survive the arctic climate. This is an extra indication that woolly mammoths were not polar creatures.

French prehistorian Henry Neuville conducted the most detailed study of mammoth skin and hair. At the end of his thorough analysis, he wrote the following: "It appears to me impossible to find, in the anatomical examination of the skin and [hair], any argument in favor of adaptation to the cold."

- H. Neuville, On the Extinction of the Mammoth, Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution, 1919, p. 332.

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