Who is bigger than a mammoth. Brief information about mammoths. Many mammoth bodies are preserved in the permafrost

It is believed that the word "mammoth" comes from the phrase "mang ont", which in translation from Mansi means "earth horn". Then it passed to other languages ​​of the world, including English. These huge animals lived during the Pleistocene era. They inhabited the territory of Europe, North Asia and North America. Many researchers and archaeologists are still concerned about the mystery: how did these animals disappear from the face of the Earth?

Finds in Russia

The mammoth is an extinct animal species. It is one of the closest relatives of the elephant. Until now, scientists are arguing about when the mammoths became extinct. At the excavations of the sites of an ancient man, which belong to the Stone Age, drawings of these animals were found. In the Voronezh region, archaeologists have discovered the bones of mammoths. From them, the ancient man built his dwelling. There is an assumption that they were also used as fuel.

Both in Siberia and Alaska, researchers have found the corpses of mammoths, which were preserved thanks to permafrost. In the book by Oleg Kuvaev called "Territory" you can even read the story of how one of the archaeologists knitted himself a sweater from the wool of an ancient animal. Scientists find the remains of mammoth bones in the most unexpected places. Teeth and bones are often found in the Moscow region and even on the very territory of the capital.

Appearance of animals

In size, mammoths were no larger than a modern elephant. However, their torso was more massive, and their limbs were shorter. The wool of mammoths was long, and at the top of the jaw they had menacing tusks up to 4 meters long. In winter, with the help of these tusks, like a bulldozer, the animals raked the snow. Some subspecies of mammoths reached an unprecedented weight - as much as 10.5 tons.

Inhabitants of Wrangel Island

There are many theories about when mammoths became extinct. One of them belongs to the candidate of geological sciences Sergey Vartanyan. In 1993, on the territory of Wrangel Island, he discovered the remains of the so-called dwarf mammoths. Their growth did not exceed 1.8 m. The researchers, using radiocarbon analysis, came to the conclusion that mammoths could live here 3.7 thousand years ago.

Before this discovery, scientists believed that the last mammoths could live in Taimyr about 10 thousand years ago. The find of the scientist showed that these animals lived on Wrangel Island at the same time as the flourishing of the Minoan culture on the territory of about. Crete, the Sumerian civilization, and the 11th Dynasty pharaohs in Egypt.

Key Assumptions

Currently, there are two main hypotheses that explain why mammoths became extinct. According to the first, this happened due to the deterioration of climatic conditions. Proponents of another hypothesis believe that the main reason was human activity - hunting. In the era of the Upper Paleolithic, people have already settled throughout the Earth. It was at this time that these huge animals were exterminated.

Main hypothesis

Studies show that mammoths began to die out as a species quite a long time ago - about 120 thousand years ago. The final disappearance occurred at the turn between two ice ages. Gradually, the population decreased from several million to tens of thousands. During the ice age, it was so cold on Earth that the grass that these animals ate became a rarity. Grasslands in the north gradually began to turn into forests and tundra. The result of the extinction of this species was precisely the cooling due to the beginning of the ice age.

Epidemic hypothesis

The mammoth is an extinct animal, but it is very difficult to say why this species disappeared from the face of the Earth. There is another theory: American scientists Preston Max and Ross McPhee hypothesized that an epidemic could be the cause. People who then shared territory with mammoths were able to adapt and survive. And it was more difficult for animals to develop immunity because of their huge size and sluggishness. When mammoths became infected, they went to water bodies and died there. Scientists have noticed that the largest number of burials of these animals is located just on the banks of rivers and lakes.

However, some archaeological finds do not support this hypothesis: scientists often find undigested food in the stomachs of animals, and the remains of grass in their mouths. Apparently, the moment when the mammoths died out happened quite suddenly.

space invasion

There is another assumption about why mammoths died out and when. It is believed that they could be killed by a huge comet that collided with the Earth 13 thousand years ago. Because of this comet, the researchers believe, people were forced to take up agriculture. Archaeologists found data on the collision in southern Turkey. The comet destroyed not only mammoths, but also other types of animals. It was because of this that people had to leave hunting and gathering and turn to agricultural labor.

Disappearance due to incest

There is another theory, according to which the last mammoths remaining on about. Wrangel, became extinct due to inbreeding. This term refers to inbreeding, which results in various deformities and genetic anomalies. Thus, the extinction of these animals was due to the reduction of genetic diversity. On the territory of Wrangel lived about 500-1000 individuals - at least, such estimates are given by scientists. And 500 individuals is the minimum number that is necessary for the survival of any species of endangered animals.

The approximate time when mammoths, or rather the last of their representatives, died out was about 4 millennia ago. However, shortly before the death of this population, another small group of animals fought for survival on the modern territory of St. Paul's Island. It lies between the coast of Alaska and the Far East.

Why did mammoths become extinct?

In the 3rd grade, students study this topic. Children need to explain very clearly the reasons for the disappearance of these animals. Therefore, we can recommend that students and their parents use the main two hypotheses about the disappearance of these ancient animals. However, in addition to the two assumptions that hunters exterminated mammoths and that they could disappear from the face of the Earth due to deteriorating climatic conditions, other theories can be covered in the homework. For example, extinction due to a collision with a comet or due to inbreeding.

Arguments against hypotheses

Many archaeologists do not agree with the hypothesis of the extinction of these animals due to hunting for them. For example, about 13 thousand years ago, an ancient man had already mastered the entire expanse of Siberia. However, the time when the last mammoths in this area died out was about 10 thousand years ago. The researchers note that hunting animals of this size was dangerous and impractical. In addition, setting traps in frozen ground must have taken a lot of time and effort, especially considering that it was carried out using rather primitive tools.

However, other animals disappeared from the planet at the same time that mammoths died out. The history of the world has data that in the same era the wild horses that lived in the vastness of America also disappeared. Researchers have a natural question: if mammoths died out, then why did their contemporaries survive: bison, caribou, musk oxen?

In addition, a wild horse survived - tarpan, which was exterminated only in the second half of the 19th century. Despite the abundance of hypotheses, it is believed that the most reasonable is the theory of the impact of the ice age. A study by American scientist Dale Garty confirms the climate hypothesis. The scientist came to the conclusion about its reliability, having studied hundreds of remains of mammoths and people. Mammoths easily endured severe frost, but when it became warmer, the snow froze on their long wool, and this was a real disaster. Wool became an ice shell, which did not protect the animal from the cold.

bone disease

Another assumption was made by scientists who conducted a study of the remains of animals found in Kemerovo region. Archaeologists believe that mammoths could have disappeared here due to bone disease - there was a decrease in calcium levels in local waters. Animals tried to find salt licks to make up for this deficiency, but this did not help them escape. The weakened mammoths were guarded by an ancient man. Each of the hypotheses has the right to exist - after all, if none of the assumptions can be proven, then they cannot be refuted.

† Woolly mammoth
Peter Modlitba. woolly mammoths (oil on canvas, 2008)
scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animals
Type:	chordates
Subtype:	Vertebrates
Class:	mammals
Squad:	proboscis
Family:	Elephant
Genus:
View:	woolly mammoth
International scientific name
Mammothus primigenius Blumenbach, 1799

woolly mammoth, or Siberian mammoth(lat. Mammothus primigenius) is an extinct species of the elephant family.

Description

Fragments of a mammoth tusk (Rtishchevsky Museum of Local History)

The height at the withers of large mammoth males was about 3 meters, and the weight did not exceed 5-6 tons. The females were noticeably smaller than the males. The high withers made the silhouette of the beast somewhat humpbacked.

The entire body of the mammoth was covered with thick wool. The length of the hair of an adult animal on the shoulders, hips and sides reached almost a meter, a long suspension was obtained, which, like a skirt, covered the belly and upper part limbs. Thick, dense undercoat, covered with coarse outer hair, reliably protected the animal from the cold. The color of the coat varied from brown, in some places almost black, to yellow-brown and reddish. The cubs were colored somewhat lighter, with a predominance of yellow-brown and reddish tones. The size of the mammoth was about the same as that of modern elephants, but thick and long hair made his figure more impressive.

The head of the mammoth was massive, the top of the head was stretched upwards, on the crown of her head was crowned with a "cap" of hard black hair. The fur-covered ears were small, smaller than those of the Indian elephant. The tail is short, with a brush of long, very stiff and thick black hair at the end. Protection from the cold, in addition to small ears and thick undercoat, was, according to academician V.V. Zalensky, the anal valve - a fold of skin under the tail that covers the anus. From the skin glands of the mammoth, the sebaceous glands of the skin and the postorbital gland were discovered, with the secret of which modern elephants mark the territory during the breeding season.

The appearance of the mammoth was complemented by huge tusks, which had a kind of spiral curvature. When leaving the jaw, they were directed downward and somewhat to the sides, and their ends were bent inward, towards each other. With age, the curvature of the tusks, especially in males, increased, so that in very old animals their ends almost closed or crossed. The tusks of large males reached a length of 4 m, and their weight reached 110 kg. In females, the tusks were less curved and thinner at the base. Mammoth tusks from a young age have wear zones, indicating their intensive use. They are located differently than in modern elephants, on the outside of the tusks. There are suggestions that with the help of tusks, mammoths raked snow and dug out food from under it, stripped the bark from trees, and in snowless cold times they broke out pieces of ice to quench their thirst.

To grind food on each side of the upper and lower jaws at the same time, the mammoth had only one, but very large tooth. The change of teeth took place in a horizontal direction, the back tooth moved forward and pushed out the worn front one, which was a small remnant of 2-3 enamel plates. During the life of the animal in each half of the jaw, 6 teeth were successively replaced, of which the first three were considered milk teeth, and the last three were permanent, molars. When the last of them was completely erased, the beast lost its ability to feed and died.

The chewing surface of the mammoth's teeth is a wide and long plate covered with transverse enamel ridges. These teeth are highly durable and well preserved, so they are found much more often than other bone remains of the animal.

Compared to modern elephants, the mammoth was slightly shorter-legged. This is due to the fact that he ate mainly pasture, while his modern relatives tend to eat branches and leaves of trees, tearing them off. high altitude. The limbs of the mammoth resembled columns. The sole of the feet was covered with unusually hard keratinized skin 5-6 cm thick, dotted with deep cracks. Above inside the soles had a special elastic cushion, which played the role of a shock absorber during movement, due to which the mammoth's step was light and silent. On the front edge of the soles there were small nail-like hooves, 3 on the front legs and 4 on the hind legs. From the impact of the moist soil of the coastal tundra steppe, the hooves grew and, acquiring ugly forms, clearly interfered with the mammoths. The diameter of the trace of a large mammoth reached almost half a meter. The legs of the beast, due to its enormous weight, produced great pressure on the ground, so the mammoths avoided viscous and swampy places whenever possible.

Spreading

The well-known Russian paleontologist A.V. Sher put forward a hypothesis that the woolly mammoth was native to northeast Siberia (Western Beringia). The most ancient remains (about 800 thousand years ago) of this species of mammoths are known from the valley of the Kolyma River, from where it subsequently settled in Europe and, as the ice age intensified, in North America.

Habitat and lifestyle

The way of life and habitats of mammoths cannot yet be convincingly reconstructed. However, by analogy with modern elephants, it can be assumed that mammoths were herd animals. This is confirmed by paleontological finds. In the herd of mammoths, just like the elephants, there was a leader, most likely an old female. Males were kept in separate groups or singly. Probably, during seasonal migrations, mammoths united in huge herds.

The vast expanses of tundra-steppes were heterogeneous in biotope productivity. Most likely, the places richest in food were river valleys and lake basins. There were thickets of tall grasses and sedges. In hilly areas, mammoths could feed mainly on the bottom of the valleys, where there were more shrubs of dwarf willow and birch. The sheer amount of food they consume suggests that mammoths, like modern elephants, were mobile and moved around frequently.

Apparently, in the warm season, the animals fed mainly on grassy vegetation. In the frozen intestines of two mammoths that died in the warm season, sedges and grasses (especially cotton grass) predominate, lingonberry bushes, green mosses and thin shoots of willow, birch, and alder were found in small quantities. The contents of the stomach filled with food of one of the mammoths weighed about 250 kg. It can be assumed that in winter time, especially in snowy conditions, shoots of tree and shrub vegetation acquired great importance in the nutrition of the mammoth.

Findings of mummies of mammoth cubs - mammoths, somewhat expanded the understanding of the biology of these animals. Now we can assume that mammoths were born in early spring, their body was completely covered with thick hair. By the arrival of winter, they were already growing noticeably and could make long trips together with adults, for example, migrating south at the end of autumn.

Of the predators, cave lions were the most dangerous for mammoths. It is possible that a sick or distressed animal also fell prey to wolves or hyenas. No one could threaten healthy adult mammoths, and only with the advent of active human hunting for mammoths did they become constantly endangered.

Extinction

There are several theories about the extinction of woolly mammoths, but the specific reasons for their death remain a mystery. The extinction of mammoths probably occurred gradually and not simultaneously in different parts their vast range. As the living conditions worsened, the habitat area of ​​the animals narrowed, split into small areas. The number of animals decreased, the fertility of females decreased and the mortality of young animals increased. It is very likely that mammoths died out earlier in Europe and somewhat later - in the north-east of Siberia, where natural conditions did not change so sharply. 3-4 thousand years ago, mammoths finally disappeared from the face of the earth. The last mammoth populations survived the longest in northeastern Siberia and on Wrangel Island.

Finds on the territory of the Rtishchevsky district

Part of the jaw of a mammoth. Found near the village of Yelan in 1927. Serdobsk Museum of Local Lore

On the territory of the present Rtishchevsky district, bones, teeth and tusks of mammoths were often found.

In the same year, mammoth bones were found on the washed-out bank of the Iznair River near the village of Zmeevka.

On September 9, in the Kalinovo ravine near the village of Yelan, archaeologists discovered the humerus of the front leg of a mammoth. The length of the bone is 80 cm, in diameter - 17 cm and in circumference - 44.4 cm. Here, in the spring flood of the year, the peasant M. T. Tareev found a well-preserved mammoth tusk. The length of the tusk was more than two meters, weight - about 70 kg. These finds are stored in the funds of the Serdobsk Museum of Local Lore.

In the early 1970s, near the village named after Maxim Gorky, mammoth bones were discovered. According to eyewitnesses, Sasha Gurkin, a fifth grade student of the Shilo-Golitsyn secondary school, discovered them. As a result of excavations, vertebrae, shoulder blades, leg bones, ribs and a piece of tusk were recovered from the clay slope of a deep ravine. The remaining parts of the skeleton could not be found. Next to the bones of an adult animal, a fibula, clearly belonging to a cub, was found.

Parts of a tusk and teeth of a mammoth are stored in the Rtishchevsk Museum of Local Lore.

Literature

• Izotova M. A. The history of the study of archaeological sites of the Rtishevsky district of the Saratov region. - S. 236
• Kuvanov A. Into the depths of centuries (From the cycle of essays "Rtishchevo") // Lenin's Way. - December 15, 1970. - S. 4
• Oleinikov N. From time immemorial // Lenin's Way. - May 22, 1971. - S. 4
• Tikhonov A.N. Mammoth. - M. - St. Petersburg: Association of scientific publications KMK, 2005. - 90 p. (Series "Animal Diversity". Issue 3)

Flora and fauna of the Rtishchevsky region
Flora of Rtishchevskiy district
Mushrooms of the Rtishchevsky district
Fauna of the Rtishchevskiy district	Invertebrates Vertebrates paleofauna
Red Book of the Saratov region

Rtishchevo and Rtishchevo district in topics
Symbols and awards
People of the city and region
Administrative- territorial division

During the ice age in Siberia lived very unusual species animals. Many of them are no longer on Earth. The largest of them was the mammoth. The largest individuals reached 4-4.5 meters in height, and their tusks up to 3.5 meters long weighed 110-130 kilograms. Fossil remains of mammoths were found in the northern regions of Europe, Asia, America and a little to the south - at the latitude of the Caspian Sea and Lake Baikal. The death and burial of mammoths occurred 44-26 thousand years ago, as evidenced by radiocarbon dating and the results of palynological analysis of numerous burials of their remains.

A truly inexhaustible "warehouse" of mammoth bones is Siberia. Giant Mammoth Cemetery - New Siberian Islands. In the last century, from 8 to 20 tons of elephant tusks were mined there annually. According to old commercial reports, before the First World War, the export of tusks from North-Eastern Siberia was 32 tons per year, which corresponds to about 220 pairs of tusks.

It is believed that over 200 years, tusks from about 50 thousand mammoths were taken out of Siberia. A kilogram of a good tusk goes abroad for $100; For a bare mammoth skeleton, Japanese firms are now offering from 150 to 300 thousand dollars. The Magadan baby mammoth, when sent to a trade show in London in 1979, was insured for 10 million rubles. In a scientific sense, he had no price at all ...

In 1914, on Bolshoi Lyakhovsky Island (Novosibirsk Islands), industrialist Konstantin Vollosovich dug up a whole, well-preserved skeleton of a mammoth. He offered the Russian Academy of Sciences to buy the find from him. He was refused, referring (as always) to lack of money: an expedition to find another mammoth had just been paid.

Count Stenbock-Fermor paid Vollosovich's expenses and donated his acquisition to France. For a whole skeleton and four feet in leather and meat, pieces of the skin, the donor received the Order of the Legion of Honor. Thus, the only well-preserved mammoth exhibit appeared outside of Russia.

Since the remains of mammoths are in giant natural refrigerators - in layers of the so-called permafrost, they came to us in good condition. Scientists do not deal with individual fossils or several bones of skeletons, but can even study the blood, muscles, hair of these animals and also determine what they ate. The most famous specimen has a stomach and a mouth full of grass and branches! They say that in Siberia there are still surviving individuals of woolly elephants ...

The unanimous opinion of experts is as follows: in reality, thousands of living individuals are needed to preserve the population. They would not go unnoticed… However, there are other reports.

There is a legend that in 1581 the warriors of the famous conqueror of Siberia Yermak saw huge hairy elephants in the dense taiga. Experts are still at a loss: who did the glorious vigilantes see? After all, ordinary elephants were already known in those days: they were found at the courts of governors and in the royal menagerie. Since then, the legend of living mammoths has lived ...

In 1962, a Yakut hunter told geologist Vladimir Pushkarev that before the revolution, hunters had repeatedly seen huge hairy animals “with a big nose and fangs.” Ten years ago, this hunter himself discovered traces unknown to him "the size of a basin." There is a story of two Russian hunters who in 1920 met the footprints of a giant beast at the edge of the forest. This happened between the Chistaya and Tasa rivers (the area between the Ob and the Yenisei). Oval in shape, the footprints were about 70 cm long and about 40 cm wide. The creature placed its front legs four meters from its hind legs.

The stunned hunters followed the tracks and a few days later they met two monsters. They followed the giants from a distance of about three hundred meters. The animals had curved white tusks, brown coloration, and long hair. A sort of elephants in fur coats. They moved slowly. One of the last press reports that Russian geologists saw live mammoths in Siberia appeared in 1978.

“It was the summer of 1978,” recalls the foreman of the miners S. I. Belyaev, “our artel was washing gold on one of the nameless tributaries of the Indigirka River. At the height of the season, an interesting incident occurred. In the predawn hour, when the sun had not yet risen, a dull clatter was suddenly heard near the parking lot. The dream of prospectors is a bit. Jumping to their feet, they stared at each other in surprise with a mute question: “What is this?” As if in response, a splash of water was heard from the river. We, seizing our guns, began to stealthily make our way in that direction. As we rounded the rocky outcropping, an incredible scene presented itself to our eyes. In the shallow waters of the river there were about a dozen God knows where the mammoths came from. Huge, shaggy animals slowly drank the cold water. For about half an hour we looked at these fabulous giants as if spellbound. And those, having quenched their thirst, decorously, one after another, went deep into the forest thicket ... ".

Suddenly, by some miracle, these ancient animals, despite everything, in hidden deserted places, are still alive to this day?

“A mammoth by its liking is a meek and peaceful animal, and affectionate towards people. When meeting with a man, the mammoth not only does not attack him, but even clings and fawns over the man.

(from the notes of the Tobolsk local historian P.Gorodtsov, XIX century)

Among the animals that have disappeared before the eyes of man, the mammoth occupies a special place. And the point here is not that this is the largest land mammal that people have encountered. It is still not completely clear why this Siberian giant died so unexpectedly. Scientists do not hesitate to classify the mammoth as a long-extinct animal. And it's easy to understand them. None of the biologists has yet managed to bring back the skin of a “freshly slaughtered” animal from the northern expeditions. Therefore, it does not exist.

For scientists, the only question is, as a result of what cataclysms did this huge northern elephant disappear from the face of the earth, roaming the vast expanses of Siberia 10-15 thousand years ago?

If you look through the old history books, you can find out that, it turns out, the people of the Stone Age became the perpetrators of the extinction of this giant. At one time, a hypothesis was spread about the amazing dexterity of primitive hunters, who specialized exclusively in eating mammoths. They drove this powerful beast into traps and ruthlessly destroyed it.

The proof of this assumption was the fact that mammoth bones were found in almost all ancient sites. Sometimes they even dug up the huts of ancient people, made from the skulls and tusks of the poor fellow. True, even looking at the magnificent fresco on the wall of the Historical Museum, depicting the ease with which northern elephants clog with large stones, one can hardly believe in the luck of such a hunt.

But at the end of the twentieth century, the ancient hunters were rehabilitated. This was done by academician Nikolai Shilo. He put forward a theory explaining the death of not only mammoths, but also other inhabitants of the North: the Arctic yak, saiga and woolly rhinoceros. 10,000 years ago, North America and most of Eurasia were a single continent, welded together by a layer of floating ice, covered by so-called loess - dust particles. Under a cloudless sky and a never-setting sun, the loess was completely covered with thick grass. Severe winters with little snow did not prevent mammoths from getting frozen grass in large quantities, and long thick hair, thick undercoat and fat reserves helped them cope even with severe frosts.

But now the climate has changed - it has become more humid. The mainland on floating ice disappeared. The thin crust of loess was washed away summer rains, and the outskirts of Siberia have turned from the northern steppes into marshy swampy tundra. Mammoths turned out to be not adapted to the humid climate: they fell into swamps, their warm undercoat got wet in the rain, a thick layer of snow that fell in winter did not allow access to the meager tundra vegetation. Therefore, mammoths simply physically could not live up to our time.

But here's what's weird. As if to spite scientists, fresh remains of mammoths continue to be found in Siberia.

In 1977, a perfectly preserved seven-month-old mammoth was discovered on the Krigili River. A little later, in the Magadan region, they found the Enmynville mammoth, more precisely, its one hind leg. But what was that foot! It was remarkable for its amazing freshness and did not retain a trace of decay. These remains allowed scientists L. Gorbachev and S. Zadalsky from the Institute of Biological Problems of the North to study in detail not only hairline mammoth, but also structural features of the skin, even the content of sweat and sebaceous glands. And it turned out that mammoths had a powerful hairline, abundantly lubricated with fat, so that climate change could not lead to the complete destruction of these animals.

The change of food also could not be fatal for the "northern elephant". Back in 1901, on the Berezovka River, a tributary of the Kolyma, a mammoth corpse was found, studied in detail by the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. In the stomach of the animal, scientists found the remains of plants characteristic of modern floodplain meadows of the lower reaches of the Lena River.

New information allows us to take more seriously the cases of people meeting with mammoths. These meetings started a long time ago. Travelers from many countries who visited Muscovy and Siberia, not even suspecting the theories of modern biologists, stubbornly wrote about the existence of mammoths. For example, the Chinese geographer Sima Qian in his historical notes (188-155 BC) writes:

"... of the animals are found ... huge wild boars, northern elephants in bristles and northern rhinoceros genus." Herberstein, the ambassador of the Austrian Emperor Sigismund, who visited Russia in the middle of the 16th century, wrote in his “Notes on Muscovy”: “In Siberia ... there is a great variety of birds and various animals, such as, for example, sables, martens, beavers, ermines, squirrels ... In addition, the weight. In the same way, polar bears, hares ... "

The Tobolsk local historian P. Gorodtsov tells about the mysterious beast “weight” in the essay “A Trip to the Salym Territory”, published in 1911. It turns out that the Kolyma Khanty were familiar with the strange animal "all". This "monster" was covered with thick, long hair and had horns. Sometimes the "vesi" started such a fuss among themselves that the ice on the lake broke with a terrible roar.

Here is another very interesting piece of evidence. During the famous campaign of Ermak in Siberia in the dense taiga, his soldiers saw huge hairy elephants. Until now, experts are at a loss: who did the vigilantes meet? After all, real elephants were already known in Russia at that time. They were kept not only in the royal menagerie, but also at the courts of some governors.

Now let's turn to another layer of information - to the legends preserved by local residents. The Ob Ugrians, the Siberian Tatars were sure of the existence of the northern giant and described him in detail to P. Gorodtsov exactly as stated in the quotation at the beginning of the article.

This "extinct" giant was also met in the twentieth century. Western Siberia. Small Lake Leusha. After the celebration of Trinity Day, boys and girls returned in wooden boats, an accordion played. And suddenly, 300 meters from them, a huge hairy carcass rises from the water. One of the men shouted: "Mammoth!" The boats huddled together, and people watched with fear as the three-meter carcass that appeared above the water swayed on the waves for several moments. Then the hairy body dived and disappeared into the abyss.

There are many such testimonies. For example, Maya Bykova, a well-known researcher of extinct animals, spoke about a pilot who saw a mammoth in Yakutia in the 1940s. Moreover, the latter also plunged into the water and sailed away along the lake surface.

Not only in Siberia you can meet a mammoth. In 1899, an article about a meeting with a mammoth in Alaska was published in the American magazine "McClures Magazine". When its author, H. Tukman, traveled in 1890 along the St. Michael and Yukon rivers, he lived for a long time in one small Indian tribe and heard many interesting stories there from the old Indian Joe.

One day Joe saw a picture of an elephant in a book. He became excited and said that he met this animal on the Porcupine River. Here in the mountains there was a country that the Indians called Ti-Kai-Koya (the footprint of the devil). Joe and his son went to shoot beavers. After a long journey through the mountains, they came to a vast, tree-covered valley with a large lake in the middle. In two days, the Indians made a raft and crossed a lake as long as a river. It was there that Joe saw a huge animal that looked like an elephant:

“He poured water on himself from his long nose, and in front of his head stuck out two teeth each ten guns long, bent and sparkling white in the sun. Its wool was black and sparkling and hung on its sides like bunches of weeds on the branches after the flood ... But then it lay down in the water, and the waves that ran through the reeds reached our armpits, such was a splash.

And yet where could such huge animals hide? Let's try to figure it out. The climate in Siberia has changed. You will not find food in the coniferous taiga. Another thing is along river valleys or near lakes. True, rich water meadows are replaced here by impenetrable swamps, and it is most convenient to get close to them by water. And what prevents a mammoth from doing this? Why shouldn't he switch to an amphibian lifestyle? He should be able to swim, and not bad.

Here we can rely not only on legends, but also on scientific facts. As you know, the closest relatives of mammoths are elephants. And just recently it turned out that these giants are excellent swimmers. They not only love to swim in shallow water, but also swim several tens of kilometers into the sea!

But if elephants not only love to swim, but also swim many kilometers in the sea, then why shouldn't mammoths be able to do this too? After all, they are the closest relatives of elephants. Who are their distant relatives? What do you think? The famous sea sirens are animals transformed in myths into sweet-voiced female mermaids. They evolved from terrestrial proboscis animals and retained features common to elephants: mammary mammary glands, change of molars throughout life and tusk-like incisors.

It turns out that not only sirens have elephant signs. Elephants also retained some of the properties characteristic of marine animals. More recently, biologists have discovered that they are able to emit infrasounds at a frequency below the sensitivity threshold of the human ear and perceive these sounds. Moreover, the organ of hearing in elephants is the vibrating frontal bones. Only marine animals, such as whales, have such abilities. For land animals, this is a unique property. Probably, in addition to this property, elephants and their relatives, mammoths, retained other qualities that facilitate their transition to an aquatic existence.

And one more argument in favor of the existence of a mammoth in the North. This is a description of the mysterious animals that live in the cold lakes of Siberia. The first to see a strange animal living in the Yakut lake Labynkyr was the geologist Viktor Tverdokhlebov. On July 30, 1953, he was lucky in a way that none of the explorers of the unknown had been lucky for almost half a century. Being on a plateau that rose on the surface of the lake, Victor observed "something" that barely rose above the surface of the water. From the dark gray carcass of the animal, which was swimming towards the shore with heavy throws, large waves diverged in a triangle.

The only question is, what did the geologist see? Most researchers of the unknown are sure that it was one of the varieties of waterfowl pangolins that somehow survived to our time in some incomprehensible way and for some reason chose the icy waters of the lake, where reptiles, as they say, physiologically could not live.

Recently, the MAI Kosmopoisk group visited the lake. Members of the group saw muddy, rippling footprints on the water. On the shore, ice stalactites were discovered, formed as a result of the runoff of water from a drying animal, one and a half meters wide and five meters long. Imagine for a moment a crocodile with icicles falling from it! Yes, he, the poor fellow, having got into such climatic conditions, would have turned into an ice log in twenty minutes.

But here's what's remarkable. In stories about the extraordinary inhabitants of the lakes, a similar description often slips: a long, flexible neck, a body towering above the water. But maybe, in fact, it was not the long neck and torso of a reptile plesiosaur, but a highly raised trunk and a mammoth head behind it?

So, the mammoth that disappeared ten thousand years ago after another sharp change in climate may not have disappeared at all, but, as Vladimir Vysotsky sings in one of his songs: "... dived and lay down on the ground." He just wanted to survive. And, of course, he does not at all strive to be “tracked” and let him go for meat.

Look for the mammoth!

Dolly the sheep, whose birth story is still on everyone's lips, greatly disappointed her "fathers": the sensational cloning experience gave a disappointing result. Dolly was aging rapidly compared to her control sisters, who were born traditional way.

But that's half the trouble.

Most of all, scientists were upset that Dolly showed unmotivated aggressiveness, getting out of control of her guardians.

In the meantime, the American laboratory decided to make the object of cloning ... a mammoth found by our scientists at Cape Chelyuskin.

If we are guided by one of the versions of the disappearance of mammoths, which suggests that they were exterminated by humans, then this action may seem humane: nature is returning what was lost. But if mammoths bred by cloning become aggressive over time, like an experimental sheep, they will have a wonderful chance to settle scores with the descendants of their offenders...

Isn't it easier to look for a mammoth on the other side Ural mountains, from where, at the beginning of the 17th century, mammoth bones and tusks were exported to China, Khorezm, England, Japan, America, where snuff boxes, caskets, combs and other elegant trinkets were made from them?

Perhaps the statement, which is perceived by many as a good joke that Russia is the birthplace of elephants, did not arise from scratch? After all, before Peter I in Russia there were whole artels, mining and selling mammoth tusks and bones.

Pre-revolutionary commercial reports indicate that before the First World War, the annual export of tusks from Siberia amounted to over 32 tons, and Irkutsk merchants, trading in mammoths (!), Helped out up to a million rubles over the summer ...

Is it possible that the remains of mammoths have not been preserved fossilized and decayed since the Quaternary period of the late Pleistocene epoch? Or is it that modern elephants accidentally "wandered" there from the southern latitudes? Then why don't they wander now?

The fact that mammoths have not died out is argued, for example, by the Evenki, Chukchi, and Yakuts. Among the population of the Republic of Mari El there are eyewitnesses who met (!) a mammoth back in the 60s of the twentieth century. Old-timers said that before the revolution there were cases when offended by someone "obda" (the Mari name for a mammoth) survived people from the villages, destroying their buildings. Such a fate befell the inhabitants of the villages of Nizhnie Shapy and Azakov in the Medvedev district ...

In 1900, the hunter Lamut Tarabykin discovered a mammoth in a washed-out cliff of the Kolyma tributary, so preserved that he mistook it for a living one. The blood vessels of the giant's muscles were filled with blood, undigested leaves and branches were found in the stomach, and a bunch of grass was found in the mouth. Mammoth meat was eaten by dogs with pleasure.

Two enterprising students of the Geological Prospecting Institute, according to rumors, brought “mammoth meat” to the capital for testing, offering it at a price of ... $ 3,000 per kilogram to elite Moscow restaurants. However, it's possible that this is all just a rumor. country tales. What about this can be found in the chronicles of past centuries?

A written tradition dating back to 1681 testifies that Yermak's soldiers saw hairy elephants on their way in the taiga.

The ambassador of the Austrian emperor Sigismund Herberstein, visiting Russia in the middle of the 16th century, in his memoirs speaks of animals seen in Siberia, naming the mammoth among others: “This is a monster covered with wonderful long hair and has large horns. Sometimes the monsters start such a fuss among themselves that the ice bursts with a terrible roar.

In 1890, a certain H. Tukman, while rafting down the Pornyupine River in Alaska, together with an Indian guide, killed a mammoth, which he later transferred to the Smithsonian Museum.

The Chinese historian Sima Tsen (2nd century BC) wrote in his historical notes that “elephants in bristles” are found on the territory of modern Siberia. The Chinese envoy, who traveled through Siberia to Moscow in 1714, informed his emperor that a beast lives in this country, which walks through the dungeon, they call it "mammoth". By the way, in Estonian and Finnish the word "mammoth" means "earth mole".

After the ice age, woolly rhinos, wild horses, musk oxen, wolverines, contemporaries of ancient mammoths, managed to survive and adapt to new conditions of existence. So why not adapt to the harsh living conditions and mighty mammoths, hiding, for example, in underground voids, which, by the way, are many in Siberia? Or maybe they have always been underground inhabitants who only grazed on the surface? Then it can be assumed that only those of them who were overtaken by a natural cataclysm on pastures died.

The assumption seems to be quite reasonable. If only because in Nenets the mammoth was called “yakhora”, which translates as follows: I am the earth, the polecat is a beast, that is, an “earth beast”.

The peoples of the North have preserved legends about the mammoth, as about a huge mole, which, coming into the light, dies. It is likely that this legend is an echo of the tragedy experienced by mammoths in antiquity. First tragedy. Perhaps the second befell them in not so distant times, and the reason for this was the indomitable greed of the “reasonable person”.

Unfortunately, there was no "red book" then.

The solution to the fate of woolly mammoths can shed light on what happened on our planet many tens and hundreds of years ago. Modern paleontologists are studying the remains of these giants in order to find out more precisely how they looked, what their lifestyle was, who they are to modern elephants and why they died out. The results of the research work will be discussed below.

Mammoths are large herd animals belonging to the elephant family. Representatives of one of their varieties, called the woolly mammoth (mammuthus primigenius), inhabited the northern regions of Europe, Asia and North America, presumably in the interval from 300 to 10 thousand years ago. Under favorable climatic conditions, they did not leave the territory of Canada and Siberia, and in harsh times they crossed the borders of modern China and the United States, fell into Central Europe and even to Spain and Mexico. In that era, Siberia was inhabited by many other unusual animals, which paleontologists combined into a category called "mammoth fauna". In addition to the mammoth, it includes such animals as the woolly rhinoceros, primitive bison, horse, tour, etc.

Many mistakenly believe that woolly mammoths are the progenitors of modern elephants. In fact, both species simply have a common ancestor, and, therefore, a close relationship.

What did the animal look like?

According to the description compiled at the end of the 18th century by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, the woolly mammoth is a giant animal, whose height at the withers reached about 3.5 meters with an average weight of 5.5 tons, and a maximum weight of up to 8 tons! The length of the coat, consisting of coarse hair and thick soft undercoat, reached more than a meter. The thickness of mammoth skin was almost 2 cm. The summer coat was somewhat shorter and not as thick as the winter coat. Most likely, she had a black or dark brown color. Scientists explain the brown color of the specimens found in the ice by the fading of the wool.

According to another version, a thick layer of subcutaneous fat and the presence of wool are evidence that mammoths constantly lived in a warm climate with an abundance of food. Otherwise, how could they work up such significant body fat? Scientists who adhere to this opinion cite two types of modern animals as an example: rather plump tropical rhinos and slender reindeer. The presence of wool in a mammoth should also not be considered evidence of a harsh climate, because the Malaysian elephant also has a hairline and at the same time feels great living on the equator itself.

Many thousands of years ago, high temperatures in the territory Far North provided by the greenhouse effect, which was caused by the presence of a water-steam dome, due to which there was abundant vegetation in the Arctic. This is confirmed by the many remains of not only mammoths, but also other heat-loving animals. So, in Alaska, skeletons of camels, lions and dinosaurs were found. And in areas where today there are no trees at all, thick and rather high trunks have been found along with the skeletons of mammoths and horses.

Let us return to the description of mammuthus primigenius. The length of the tusks of older individuals reached 4 meters, and the mass of these bony processes twisted upwards was more than a centner. The average length of the tusks varied within 2.5 - 3 m with a weight of 40 - 60 kg.

Mammoths also differed from modern elephants in their smaller ears and trunk, the presence of a special growth on the skull, and a high hump on the back. In addition, the spine of their woolly relative in the back curved sharply down.

The latest woolly mammoths living on Wrangel Island were significantly inferior in size to their progenitors, their height at the withers was a little less than 2 meters. But, despite this, in the era of the ice age, this animal was the largest representative of the fauna throughout Eurasia.

Lifestyle

The basis of the diet of mammoths was vegetable food, the average daily volume of which included almost 500 kg of various greens: grass, leaves, young tree branches and needles. This is confirmed by studies of the contents of the stomachs of mammuthus primigenius and indicates that giant animals chose to inhabit areas where both tundra and steppe flora were present.

Giants lived up to 70 - 80 years. They became sexually mature at 12-14 years of age. The most viable hypothesis suggests that the way of life of these animals was the same as that of elephants. That is, mammoths lived in a group of 2-9 individuals, which was headed by the eldest female. Males, on the other hand, led a solitary lifestyle and joined groups only during the rut.

Artifacts

Bones of mammuthus primigenius are found in almost all regions of the northern hemisphere of our planet, but Eastern Siberia is the most generous for such “gifts from the past”. During the life of the giants, the climate in this region was not harsh, but mild, temperate.

So, in 1799, on the banks of the Lena, the remains of a woolly mammoth were first found, which was called “Lensky”. A century later, this skeleton became the most valuable exhibit of the new St. Petersburg Zoological Museum.

Later, such mammoths were found on the territory of Russia: in 1901 - "Berezovsky" (Yakutia); in 1939 - "Oeshsky" (Novosibirsk region); in 1949 - "Taimyrsky" (Taimyr Peninsula); in 1977 - (Magadan); in 1988 - (the Yamal peninsula); in 2007 - (Yamal peninsula); in 2009 - baby mammoth Khroma (Yakutia); 2010 - (Yakutia).

The most valuable finds include the "Berezovsky mammoth" and the baby mammoth Khroma - individuals completely frozen in a block of ice. According to paleontologists, they have been in ice captivity for more than 30 thousand years. Scientists managed to obtain not only ideal samples of different tissues, but also to get acquainted with food from the stomach of animals that had not had time to be digested.

The richest place for the remains of mammoths are the New Siberian Islands. According to the descriptions of the researchers who discovered them, these territories are almost entirely composed of tusks and bones.

Thanks to the material collected in 2008, researchers from Canada managed to decipher 70% of the woolly mammoth genome, and 8 years later, their Russian colleagues completed this grandiose work. Over many years of painstaking work, they were able to collect about 3.5 billion particles into a single sequence. In this they were helped by the genetic material of the aforementioned Khroma mammoth.

Reasons for the extinction of mammoths

Scientists around the world have been arguing for two centuries about the reasons for the disappearance of woolly mammoths from our planet. During this time, many hypotheses have been put forward, the most viable of which is considered to be a sharp cooling caused by the destruction of the steam-water dome.

This could happen for various reasons, for example, due to the fall of an asteroid to Earth. The celestial body, when falling, split the once single continent, due to which the water vapor above the planet's atmosphere first condensed, and then poured out in a heavy downpour (about 12 m of precipitation). This provoked an intense movement of powerful mud flows, which on their way carried away animals and formed stratigraphic layers. With the disappearance of the greenhouse dome, ice and snow bound the Arctic. As a result of this, all representatives of the fauna were instantly buried in the permafrost. Therefore, some woolly mammoths are found "fresh frozen" with clover, buttercups, wild beans, and gladioli in their mouths or stomachs. Neither the listed plants, nor even their distant relatives now grow in Siberia. Because of this, paleontologists insist on the version that mammoths were killed at lightning speed due to a climate catastrophe.

This assumption interested paleoclimatologists and, taking the results of drilling as a basis, they came to the conclusion that in the period from 130 to 70 thousand years ago, a rather mild climate reigned in the northern territories located within the 55th and 70th degrees. It can be compared with the modern climate of the north of Spain.

It is impossible to fully imagine the atmosphere of the last ice age without a couple of furry mammoths stomping on the frozen tundra. But how much do you know about these legendary animals? Below are 10 amazing and interesting facts about mammoths that you might not know.

1. Mammoth tusks reached 4 m in length

In addition to long furry coats, mammoths are known for their huge tusks, which in large males reached 4 m in length. Such large tusks most likely characterized sexual attractiveness: males with longer, curved and impressive tusks were able to mate with more females during the breeding season. Also, the tusks may have been used defensively to drive away hungry saber-toothed tigers, although there is no direct fossil evidence to support this theory.

2. Mammoths were the favorite prey of primitive people

The gigantic size of the mammoth (about 5 m in height and weighing 5-7 tons) made it a particularly desirable prey for primitive hunters. Thick woolen hides provided warmth in cold times, and tasty fatty meats were an indispensable source of food. There is speculation that the patience, planning and cooperation required to capture mammoths has been a key factor in the development of human civilization!

3. Mammoths immortalized in cave paintings

From 30,000 to 12,000 years ago, the mammoth was one of the most popular objects of Neolithic artists, who depicted images of this shaggy beast on the walls of numerous caves in Western Europe. It is possible that primitive paintings were intended as totems (i.e., early people believed that the depiction of a mammoth in rock art made it easier to capture it in real life). Also, the drawings could serve as objects of worship or talented primitive artists were simply bored on a cold, rainy day! :)

4. Mammoths weren't the only "woolly" mammals back then.

All warm-blooded animals need wool to some extent to retain body heat. One of the mammoth's shaggy cousins ​​was the lesser-known woolly rhinoceros that roamed the plains of Eurasia during the Pleistocene era. Woolly rhinoceros, like mammoths, often fell prey to primitive hunters, who might consider it easier prey.

5. The genus of mammoths included many species

The widely known woolly mammoth was actually one of several species included in the mammoth genus. A dozen other species lived in North America and Eurasia during the Pleistocene era, including the steppe mammoth, the Columbus mammoth, the pygmy mammoth, and others. However, none of these species was as widespread as the woolly mammoth.

6. Sungari mammoth (Mammuthus sungari) was the largest of all

Some individuals of the Sungari mammoth (Mammuthus sungari), living in Northern China, reached a mass of about 13 tons (compared to such giants, a 5-7 tons woolly mammoth seemed short). In the Western Hemisphere, the palm belonged to the imperial mammoth (Mammuthus imperator), males of this species weighed more than 10 tons.

7 Mammoths Had A Massive Layer Of Fat Under Their Skin

Even the thickest leather and thick woolen coats are not fully capable of providing sufficient protection during severe Arctic storms. For this reason, the mammoths had a 10 cm layer of fat under their skin, which served as additional insulation and kept their bodies warm in the harshest climatic conditions.

By the way, as far as we can tell from the surviving remains, the color of mammoth fur varied from light to dark brown, just like human hair.

8 The Last Mammoths Died About 4,000 Years Ago

By the end of the last ice age, about 10,000 years ago, mammoth populations around the world had virtually disappeared from the face of the Earth due to climate change and constant hunting by humans. The exception was a small population of mammoths that lived on Wrangel Island off the coast of Siberia until 1700 BC. Due to the limited food supply, mammoths from Wrangel Island were much smaller than their counterparts from the mainland, for which they were often called pygmy elephants.

9. Many Mammoth Bodies Preserved in Permafrost

Even today, 10,000 years after the last ice age, the northern regions of Canada, Alaska and Siberia have a very cold climate, keeping numerous mammoth bodies almost intact. Identifying and extracting giant corpses from blocks of ice is a fairly simple task, it is much more difficult to keep the remains at room temperature.

10 Scientists Can Clone A Mammoth

Since mammoths became extinct relatively recently and modern elephants are their closest relatives, scientists are able to collect mammoth DNA and incubate it in a female elephant (a process known as "de-extinction"). Researchers recently announced that they have almost completely deciphered the genomes of two 40,000-year-old specimens. Unfortunately or fortunately, the same trick won't work with dinosaurs, as DNA doesn't hold up as well for tens of millions of years.