Prairie mammoth

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Prairie mammoth
ColumbianMammoth CollegeOfEasternUtah.jpg

Prairie mammoth ( Mammuthus columbi )

Temporal occurrence
middle Pleistocene to Upper Pleistocene
1.2 million years to around 10,000 years
Locations
Systematics
Elephantimorpha
Elephantida
Elephants (Elephantidae)
Elephantinae
Mammoths ( Mammuthus )
Prairie mammoth
Scientific name
Mammuthus columbi
( Falconer , 1857)
Live reconstruction of a prairie mammoth

The prairie mammoth ( Mammuthus columbi ), also known as the Colombian mammoth or American mammoth, is an extinct species from the elephant family . It is one of the largest species of elephant that has ever lived. Adult bulls could reach a height of four meters at the withers and weigh up to 10 tons. The prairie mammoth was closely related to the woolly mammoth ( Mammuthus primigenius ), which, however, had a more northerly distribution area. It is still not clear whether it was a descendant of the steppe mammoth ( Mammuthus trogontherii ) or directly from the southern elephant ( Mammuthus meridionalis ), which immigrated to America about 1.8 million years ago.

distribution

The prairie mammoth ( Mammuthus columbi ) lived in large parts of North America from the middle Pleistocene . It became extinct at the end of the Pleistocene, about 10,000 years ago. It lived further south than the co-existing woolly mammoth, and its remains can be found everywhere between California , Florida and the Great Lakes . The northernmost sites are in what is now southern Canada , the southernmost in Costa Rica . One of the main areas of distribution was probably the central prairie areas of the USA. At the Big Bone Lick, a site on the Ohio River in Kentucky , prairie mammoths were found that are 10,600 years old and are among the youngest finds. A specimen found near Nashville , Tennessee probably only died around 8,000 years ago.

Way of life

This mammoth mainly fed on grasses and sedge . There is so much certainty about the diet of these animals because pollen and other plant remains were found in the fossilized remains of the molars of the prairie mammoths. These analyzes were confirmed by the manure finds in the Bechan Cave , which was used by prairie mammoths 15,000 years ago over a period of 1,500 years. Over 300 cubic meters of mammoth dung had accumulated there, the investigation of which showed that 95% of the prairie mammoths fed on grass. Presumably the prairie mammoth also ate the fruits of the American Gleditschia , the milk orange tree ( Maclura pomifera ), the colocinth ( Citrullus colocynthus ) and the antler tree ( Gymnocladus dioicus ). All of these plants produce very large fruits that were too large for the herbivorous animals living in North America before humans reintroduced horses and domestic cattle . Due to the abundant fossil finds in North America, the social behavior of these animals could also be largely reconstructed. Similar to the elephant species still occurring today, they lived in matriarchal groups of two to 20 animals under the guidance of an older female. Bulls stayed near the herds only during the rutting season. They had to defend their calves against large predators, but they did not always succeed, as is shown by the finds of hundreds of young mammoths in the Friesenhahn cave lying next to some dead saber-toothed cats of the genus Homotherium .

The Paleo-Indians and the Prairie Mammoth

Bones of these animals are often found in association with human remains, suggesting that they were hunted, or at least used from their carcasses, by the first immigrants to America, the Paleo-Indians . One site is near Naco on San Pedro in Arizona . A skeleton of an adult individual was found here, together with eight Clovis points, a characteristic stone device, all of which were still in important parts of the body, such as the base of the skull or the shoulder blade. Only a few kilometers away in the area of ​​the Lehner Ranch, finds of 13 such peaks, associated with just as many calves, are known. Their age is 11,200 years. Such stone implements have also been handed down in Clovis ( New Mexico ). Here they appear together with prairie mammoth, horse, bison and other animals. All of these finds belong to the Clovis culture, which existed until 10,800 years ago and is one of the earliest cultures of the Paleo-Indians.

Figurative representations of the prairie mammoth, as they are similarly known for the woolly mammoth in Europe, have not yet survived. A few years ago a long bone from a large mammal was discovered in Vero Beach ( Florida ), in which such an image has been carved and which is around 13,000 years old. The only 7.5 cm long representation shows the strikingly sloping back line of the mammoth and clearly rotated tusks.

Taxonomy

The imperial mammoth ( Mammuthus imperator ) and Jefferson's mammoth ( Mammuthus jeffersoni ) are mostly considered to be the species of the prairie mammoth ( Mammuthus columbi ). Because of its ancient characteristics, the imperial mammoth was regarded as a forerunner of the prairie mammoth, whereas the Jeffersons mammoth had more modern characteristics and was viewed as an evolutionary further development.

Tribal history

The prairie mammoth most likely emerged from the southern elephant ( Mammuthus meridionalis ), which reached America 1.8 million years ago over the Bering Bridge, where finds from Alberta ( Canada ) and Florida ( USA ) are documented. It forms a sister line to the woolly mammoth , which had also developed from the southern elephant via the steppe mammoth ( Mammuthus trogontherii ). According to molecular genetic analyzes, the two lines separated around 2 million years ago. Some paleontologists see the origin of the prairie mammoth in the steppe mammoth. The proboscis first appeared in the late Old Pleistocene 1.2 million years ago.

Investigations on the complete genome of the prairie mammoth of two individuals who died around 11,200 years ago revealed a striking correspondence with that of the woolly mammoth. Haplogroup C , which had already been identified in the woolly mammoth and characterized as typical of the original wave of immigration, was detected. The researchers now assume that both species of mammoths crossed in America. But who was the original carrier of haplogroup C cannot be said at the current stage of the investigation. Both species probably met in the Great Lakes area, as their areas of distribution overlap here. The Jefferson's mammoth, originally described as an independent American mammoth species, was often found here because of its more modern features, some of which resembled the woolly mammoth. The relationship between the prairie and woolly mammoth was as close as that between the African elephant ( Loxodonta africana ) and the forest elephant ( Loxodonta cyclotis ).

The dwarf mammoth as a close relative

The dwarf mammoth , which weighs only 1,000 kilograms, is the closest related animal to the prairie mammoth. It lived on the Channel Islands of California and shows the characteristics of an island dwarfing .

literature

Web links

Commons : Prairie Mammoth ( Mammuthus columbi )  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Spencer G. Lucas and Guillermo E. Alvarado: Fossil Proboscidea from the Upper Eozoic of Central America: Taxonomy, evolutionary and paleobiogeographic significance. Revista Geológica de América Central, 42, 2010, pp. 9-42
  2. a b c Adrian Lister and Paul Bahn: Mammuts - The Giants of the Ice Age . Sigmaringen, 1997
  3. Barbara A. Purdy, Kevin S. Jones, John J. Mecholsky, Gerald Bourne, Richard C. Hulbert Jr., Bruce J. MacFadden, Krista L. Church, and Michael W. Warren: Earliest Art in the Americas: Incised Image of a Mammoth on a Mineralized Extinct Animal Bone from the Old Vero Site (8-Ir-9), Florida. Congrès de l'IFRAO, September 2010 - Symposium: L'art pléistocène dans les Amériques (Pré-Actes) / IFRAO Congress, September 2010 - Symposium: Pleistocene art of the Americas (Pre-Acts), 2010, pp. 3–12 .
  4. ^ Jacob M. Enk, DR Yesner, KJ Crossen, DW Veltre and DH O'Rourke: Phylogeographic Analysis of the mid-Holocene Mammoth from Qagnax Cave, St. Paul Island, Alaska. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 273 (1-2), 2009, pp. 184-190.
  5. Regis Debruyne, Genevieve Chu, Christine E. King, Kirsti Bos, Melanie Kuch, Carsten Schwarz, Paul Szpak, Darren R. Grätze, Paul Matheus, Grant Zazula, Dale Guthrie, Duane Froese, Bernard Buigues, Christian de Marliave, Clare Flemming , 8 Debi Poinar, Daniel Fisher, John Southon, Alexei N. Tikhonov, Ross DE MacPhee, and Hendrik N. Poinar1: Out of America: Ancient DNA Evidence for a New World Origin of Late Quaternary Woolly Mammoths. Current Biology 18, 2008, pp. 1-7
  6. Jacob Enk, Alison Devault, Regis Debruyne, Christine E King, Todd Treangen, Dennis O'Rourke, Steven L Salzberg, Daniel Fisher, Ross MacPhee uand Hendrik Poinar: Complete Columbian mammoth mitogenome Suggests interbreeding with woolly mammoths. Genome Biology 12, 2011, pp. R51 (pp. 1-29) ( [1] ).