When we use the word “mammoth’ today, we mean something that is huge or colossal. But there actually was an animal that lived long ago that is called the “mammoth.” It was a kind of elephant that is now extinct and that lived in many different parts of the world during the Stone Age.

Even though this ancient type of elephant is called the “mammoth,” it was about the same size as the Indian elephant that exists today. It had a kind of pointed skull and very unusual tusks curved in a spiral with the tips pointing to each other.

What made this elephant unique and quite different from the elephants we know today is that it was covered with long hair. In fact, the hair was so long that it almost reached the ground. The body was shaped into a great hump at the back of the neck, and the ears were small.

The whole body of this creature was covered with an undercoat of yellowish-brow wooly hair, and the long, black thicker hairs came out through this undercoat. The hair also grew on the ears. The first thing you’d probably say if you saw a mammoth today would be: “Get a haircut!”

Obviously an animal with so much hair on it would be more comfortable in a cold climate. And the mammoth is the only kind of elephant ever to exist that felt at home in a cold or Arctic climate. So it lived in Siberia quite comfortably, and probably survived there until a fairly recent period.

In other parts of the world, such as France and England, it survived only as long as the glacial period, or ice age, lasted. In fact, when things warmed up in England between glacial periods, the mammoth moved up north, following the retreating ice.

There were also mammoths in North America during that age, and some of these reached a height of 4 meters. Mammoths, because of their great weight, often sank into ice-cold mud which later became frozen. That’s why frozen mammoths are still sometimes found very well preserved in places like Siberia.