Individuals could probably reach the age of 60. The diet of the woolly mammoth was mainly grasses and sedges. Its behaviour was similar to that of modern elephants, and it used its tusks and trunk for manipulating objects, fighting, and foraging. It had long, curved tusks and four molars, which were replaced six times during the lifetime of an individual. The ears and tail were short to minimise frostbite and heat loss. The colour of the coat varied from dark to light. It was covered in fur, with an outer covering of long guard hairs and a shorter undercoat. The woolly mammoth was well adapted to the cold environment during the last ice age. A newborn calf weighed about 90 kg (200 lb). Females reached 2.6–2.9 m (8.5–9.5 ft) in shoulder heights and weighed up to 4 metric tons (4.4 short tons). Males reached shoulder heights between 2.67 and 3.49 m (8.8 and 11.5 ft) and weighed up to 8.2 metric tons (9.0 short tons). The woolly mammoth was roughly the same size as modern African elephants. The mammoth was identified as an extinct species of elephant by Georges Cuvier in 1796. The origin of these remains was long a matter of debate, and often explained as being remains of legendary creatures. Mammoth remains had long been known in Asia before they became known to Europeans in the 17th century. The appearance and behaviour of this species are among the best studied of any prehistoric animal because of the discovery of frozen carcasses in Siberia and North America, as well as skeletons, teeth, stomach contents, dung, and depiction from life in prehistoric cave paintings. The Columbian mammoth ( Mammuthus columbi) lived alongside the woolly mammoth in North America, and DNA studies show that the two hybridised with each other. Its closest extant relative is the Asian elephant. The woolly mammoth began to diverge from the steppe mammoth about 800,000 years ago in East Asia. It was one of the last in a line of mammoth species, beginning with the African Mammuthus subplanifrons in the early Pliocene. The woolly mammoth ( Mammuthus primigenius) is an extinct species of mammoth that lived during the Pleistocene until its extinction in the Holocene epoch.
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