T h e M a m m o t h F
a u n a .
Mammoth.
Some thousands years ago in Siberia it was possible to
meet the wonderful animal – a mammoth. He was similar to an elephant, only was much more
large, had more proportionally constitution and was covered with a dense long wool. He was
the giant of height up to 3,5 m and weight 5-6 tons. Mammoths had appeared in Siberia over
hundred thousand years ago. They were participants and witnesses of changes in the nature
during the last ice age. They died out about 10 thousand years ago.
The mammoths settled in those places, where they could find many food, for example,
in valleys of rivers, on shores of lakes and swamps. In summer on shores of reservoirs
mammoths enjoyed by juicy sedges and cereal plants, liked to graze on underbrush of reed,
cane and large grass. An adult mammoth ate of 300-400 kgs of forage per day.
The mammoths lived as small herds of 12 — 15 persons. Sometimes 1 - 2 kids were
in a herd. In the day mammoths dispersed on some kilometers in searches of a forage. In
the evening they got together again for resting.
During the most hot months, when in air there were clouds of mosquitoes, mammoths
tried to stand more close to a glacier. They went to a polar tundra, where there was cool
and where the insects did not fly. Closer by autumn the mammoths began a return path to
the south. They dispersed on wide flood-lands of streams and rivers, made his way through
continuous jungle of the osier-bed, alder and shrubs, ate young sprouts. |
Mammoth
Reconstructed
mammoth skeloton compared with
average human height
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The most rough time was in winter. A
deep snow hid a grass, covered flood-landed hollows. At this time mammoths were compelled
to gnaw young trees, to pull out from under snow shrubby sprouts. This work was rather
heavy, sometimes the tusks even wore down and broke from it. On frozen swamps, not risking
to sink in bog, it was possible to find dried reeds. On open space of steppes, where in
usual time mammoths went rather, the wind blew off snow, and in especially difficult times
it was possible to extract a last year's grass. And all the same it was a little. During
long, snow winters the mammoths grew thin. Fat, which they got in summer on juicy
pastures, gradually was spent, the animals weakened. But the spring took place, the juicy
kidneys, then pages appeared on the trees, the snow gradually thawed, releasing sites of a
young grass. Mammoths again turned to the north. The huge animals have wandered along
Siberia from the north to the south and back, finding all new places for eating and going
to most remote places. Thus the separate herds have reached America. In that time there
was a band of a ground with a breadth up to 2 thousands kilometers instead of Bering
strait. Along it mammoths have reached Alaska, and than were settled in Northern America.
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