Woolly Mammoth Tooth Museum Quality Specimen

A Mammuthus primigenius tooth.

Pleistocene Period, (Devensian), 110,000-12,000 years BP

From the collection of the palaeontologist R Gledhill; collected between 1930 and 1960, from Brown Bank, Lowestoft, UK.

The woolly mammoth was roughly the same size as modern African elephants. Males reached shoulder heights between nine and eleven feet. Females averaged eight to nine feet in height. The mammoth was well adapted to the cold environment during the last ice age. It was covered in fur, with an outer covering of long guard hairs and a shorter undercoat. The colour of the coat varied from dark to light. The ears and tail were short to minimise frostbite and heat loss. It had long, curved tusks and four molars, which were replaced six times during the lifetime of an individual. Its behaviour was similar to that of modern elephants, and it used its tusks and trunk for manipulating objects, fighting, and foraging, with a diet of mainly grass and sedges. Animals could probably reach the age of sixty. Its habitat was the mammoth steppe, which stretched across northern Eurasia and North America.

• 931 grams
• 15cm (6")
• Fine condition.

Provenance
From the collection of the palaeontologist R Gledhill; collected between 1930 and 1960, from Brown Bank, Lowestoft, UK