Woolly Mammoth & Indricotherium

Woolly Mammoth Hunt

The Woolly Mammoth was a large mammal from the Ice Ages of the Earth.  They were found in Northern lattitudes like Siberia, Alaska, and Canada.  Some evidence shows that when migrating hunter-gatherers (Man) came into an area the Woolly Mammoths disappeared within 100 years.  The very last woolly mammoths lived on Wrangel Island, in the Arctic and they lasted until 4,000 years ago.  Mammoths went extinct on the mainland about 10,000 years ago.

Woolly Mammoths were about the size of a grown African elephant, only fuzzier.  Woolly mammoths were adapted to the cold of the Ice Ages and global warming and hunting by humans probably led to their extinction.  By the way, the small group of mammoths on Wrangel Island had too much inbreeding and had developed some major genetic defects,  A new discovery shows that they may have lost much or all of their sense of smell.

Woolly mammoths weighed up to  12,000 lbs. ( 5,443 kg).  They stood 11 ft. (3.4  m) tall at the shoulder.  As big as this was, the Columbian Mammoth lived further south and was even larger.  In fact, mammoths were not the largest mammal in the history of life on Earth.  That goes to Indricotherium.  Indricotherium looked like a llama on major steroids.

Indricotherium / Paraceratherium

Indricotherium and Woolly Mammoth drawn together for Comparison

Indricotherium weighed up to 40,000 lbs. (18,143 kg)  This was bigger than a T. rex dinosaur. Indricotherium is also called Paracetherium.  It was 18 ft. (5.5 m) tall and 26 ft. (8 m) long.  Indricotherium was SO big that a grown woolly mammoth could ALMOST walk beneath it without touching  Indricotherium's tummy.  But, woolly mammoths and Indricotheriums never met.  Indricotheriums lived 34-23 million years ago.  Woolly mammoths lived 120,000-4,000 years ago.  So woolly mammoths are very recent animals and Indricotherium/Paracetherium was much more ancient.  Again, the above drawing was done to help you see the size comparison...but these two animals NEVER EVER met in reality!

All drawings on this blog are Copyright Robin Lyman 2016 or 2017.  Permission is given to print pages for coloring purposes.