Bone remains which have been found prove that the mammoths originated about four million years ago in Africa. The African Mammoth (in latin mammuthus africanavus) is therefore among the oldest known species.
From Africa they diffused over Eurasia and North America and adapted themselves to the cold climate better and better. When one speaks of Mammoths today one has the Woolly Mammoth first in mind. They died out about 10’000 years ago. The definite explanation for their extinction has not yet been found but could have been the overhunting by humans, the rapid climate change or they could have fallen victim to an infectious disease.
The teeth of mammoths are quite distinctive. They are composed of a set of compressed enamel plates that are held together with cementum. These cemented plates make a very tall, strong, and wear-resistant tooth. After a tooth erupts from the gum cavity, the mammoth uses it in grinding coarse vegetation like grass. This use causes the tooth to develop a flat top with low enamel ridges where the plates have been worn.
The tall structure of these hypsodont (shallow-rooted) teeth make them very resistant to wear. This is important because mammoths are thought to have been primarily grass-eaters. Grass is a very hard material to eat. It has small pieces of silica (a glass-like substance) in its leaves. These pieces of silica act like sandpaper grit and would wear away a less resistant tooth very quickly.
Today in Alaska and Siberia ice conserved Mammoths are discovered and dug out again and again. By means of these discoveries researchers have been able to decipher a great part of the Mammoth genome in 2008. Maybe one of these days the clone technique will be advanced to the extent that with the help of their DNA these brilliant animals’ lives could be aroused again. Who knows what the future will bring. Already today it is by all means an absolute exciting thought to see Mammoths strolling in the steppes of Africa. This would be a world sensation!