| Physically, a woolly mammoth is easy to recognize. They've been extinct for 2000 years and yet any child could point one out to you if they saw one.
Mammuthus primigenius is what we call these beasts. Woolly mammoths had several unique adaptations to living in a cold glacial climate. These included: -A dense coarse and shaggy overcoat which covered a thicker undercoat of finer hair. -Long excessivly curving tusks to scrape snow away from groundcover in the winter. -A nice thick layer of insulating body fat, which included a camel-like hump of fat at the shoulders. Mammoth trunks also had an interesting adaptation to living in a snowy environment. All along the length of the trunk, two fleshy wings protruded which allowed the animals to use their long trunks to scoop up snow efficiently, which they consumed in the absence of liquid water. |