Mammuthus primigenius Blumenbach 1799

This skull of woolly mammoth was recovered from Siberia’s permafrost. The woolly mammoth, Mammuthus primigenius, is a typical tundra dweller in cold-climatic Late Pleistocene with a thick shaggy coat and a fatty body. Its curving tusks were used for scraping away snow from the low tundra vegetation on which it fed. It lived in Europe, Asia and North America and survived until about 10,000 years ago. By the end of glaciation, the warming climate may have reduced its numbers. Overhunting by early humans probably hastened its extinction.