Wednesday, December 10, 2008

How mammoth can a mammoth get?

This entertaining article by Loren Coleman introduces us to the Songua River Mammoth(Mammuthus sungari), a NE Asian species that appears to have been the largest proboscidean ever to walk the Earth. At 5.2m high and 9.1m long (tail tip to trunk tip), it weighed some 10 tons or more and must have been awe-inspiring to a hunter armed only with a spear. It still loses out for the title of "Largest Land Mammal Ever" to Paraceratherium (a.k.a. Baluchitherium or Indricotherium), which roamed some of the same territory, but it doesn't lose out by by much.

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