Like many extinctions, the reasons for this were either 1, climate, or 2, humans.
But what if they hadn't gone extinct?
What if woolly mammoths lived on into the modern age?
Today, life's biggest questions asks, what if wooly mammoths didn't go extinct?
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I'm charlotte dobre.
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Wooly mammoth are an extinct species of mammoth that lived during the ice age, otherwise known
as the Pleistocene epoch.
Its closest living relative is the Asian elephant.
They were around the same size as African elephants, reaching a heights of up to 11
feet and weighing up to 6 metric tons.
Wooly mammoths were extremely similar to elephants, but they had adapted to living in the extremely
cold climates of the ice age.
They had small ears, and short tails to limit the amount of extremities exposed to the cold.
And of course, wooly mammoths were covered in thick fur that could be either dark or
light, and they had long curved tusks.
Mammoth fossils have been found almost everywhere on earth except Australia and south America.
It is commonly believed that wooly mammoths died out at the end of the last ice age, which
was 10 thousand years ago.
But really, Experts believe the last wooly mammoths died out around 3600 years ago.
A small population of wooly mammoths were able to survive on Wrangel Island, off the
coast of Siberia, until about 1650 BCE. 1650 bce was not that long ago, there were already
complex human civilizations on earth.
Egyptian pharaohs had already been ruling for 1500 years, and the pyramids were already
1 thousand years old.
So what if wooly mammoths never went extinct?
Well one things for certain, they would have only be able to survive in colder areas of
asia, like Siberia.
At the end of the ice age, mammoths, sabre toothed cats, ground sloths and native American
horses began to go extinct.
It's a common belief in the scientific community that all these animals began to die off because
the earth began to warm up.
These animals were adapted for living in cold climates.
Its not just about being covered in thick fur that made living in warmer climates difficult.
The food that these animals ate probably died off as the world began to warm up.
For these reasons, these species could not keep up evolutionarily with the warming globe.
There is another reason why the wooly mammoth could have gone extinct, and that's humans.
When the world got warmer, humans began to advance north to new areas.
They then came across mammoths and likely hunted them.
If wooly mammoths had not gone extinct, its likely that animal conservationists would
have tried to keep them alive in wildlife reseves in colder areas of the world.
But that doesn't mean they would be safe from humans.
Mammoths would be rare and exotic, and before the days of animal conservation, mammoth products
would be highly sought after.
For example, chinese folk medicine, as well as spirituatlity relies heavily on ivory.
Its likely they would be hunted solely for that purpose, or for their meat and fur.
Mammoth fur coats would be owned by the elite.
We would likely see paintings of kings and queens wearing mammoth fur coats, had they
not gone extinct when they had and royal courts would enjoy feasts of mammoth meat.
We don't know much about the wooly mammoths, or their temperament, but if it was similar
to elephants, the possibility of domestication would be on the table.
In the early days of human civilization, they might have been trained and used for heavy
work.
Humans might have also found a way to use them for transportation.
We might have seen cave paintings and other forms of documentation of this.
If wooly mammoths didn't go extinct, there really wouldn't be that many of them left.
They would only exist in small herds in remote areas of the world like the arctic and northern
siberia, or in captivity.
Naturally, some wooly mammoths would have been kept in zoos, so spectators could witness
the ancient creatures.
They would be studied and poked at by scientists.
Its also a possibility that there might have been attempts to clone them to keep their
species alive.
Well there are some ideas of how history would be different if wooly mammoths had not gone
extinct, do you have any others?
Tell us in the comemnts below.
For now, I'm charlotte dobre and you've been watching life's biggest questions.
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