Steppe Mammoth Profile
The Woolly mammoth is clearly the most popular of the mammoths, a lot less is mentioned about its larger, older cousins. There are at least ten species currently recorded, all extinct. And while some of these ancient elephants were smaller than their extant counterparts, most were much bigger.
The possibly largest of them all – as far as we currently know – was the Steppe mammoth. A colossus at over four meters tall with equally long tusks.
Steppe Mammoth Facts Overview
| Habitat: | Steppe-tundra |
| Location: | Eurasia, East Asia |
| Lifespan: | Unknown |
| Size: | Over 4m (13ft) high, around 7 meters (23ft) long |
| Weight: | 10 to 15 tons |
| Colour: | Unknown |
| Diet: | Grazers of grasses and herbs |
| Predators: | Humans |
| Top Speed: | Unknown |
| No. of Species: | 1 |
| Conservation Status: | Extinct |
Steppe mammoths are really the unsung heroes of mammoth evolution.
They spawned some of the most epic species of mammoth we know of, including the woolly mammoth that fed, clothed and housed our ancestors in Europe for so long.
Yet, we’re only just discovering their history from the oldest DNA that’s ever been extracted, and as our smartest scientists improve our best genetic technologies, new patterns of migration, speciation, and adaptation are being revealed.
Interesting Steppe Mammoth Facts
1. They’re possibly the Grand-daddy mammoth
The Steppe mammoth, the largest of all known species of mammoth, is thought to have sired at least two other species, the Columbian mammoth and the Woolly mammoth.
And the fossil record supports this. The “West Runton mammoth” was a roughly 9-ton, 4-meter example that’s thought to represent an ‘evolutionary intermediate’ between the Steppe mammoth and the Woolly mammoth.
It’s estimated to have been 40 years old when it died and to have represented a more-or-less average size and weight for the species, which suggests that outliers could have reached even more epic proportions. 1
2. They were huge!
These elephants weren’t just genetic giants, they were physical monsters too.
Piecing together animal bones is a bit of a tricky task, so even with a complete skeleton, an animal doesn’t always reveal the truth about its shape or size.
One Steppe mammoth exhibit in a museum shows an elephant standing 4.5 meters at the shoulder, and while this one is criticised for poor bone placement, inferences from a giant pelvis do suggest that S. trogontherii could have been this tall in some cases.
Though an exact height may never be ascertained, it’s unquestionable that this was one of the largest land mammals ever to have lived and could have topped the scales at almost 15 tons, far more than even African elephants. 2
3. They originated in East Asia
But they didn’t come from Africa and instead grew up in lands where their closest loving cousins remain.
While roughly five times the mass of the remaining Asian elephants, the Steppe mammoth was thought to have evolved in East Asia, and much like the North American Bison, they migrated in at least two waves into America from Asia. The first resulted in the Columbian mammoth, the second spawned the notorious Woolly mammoth.
But details of mammoth species and migration patterns are still matters of contention. 3
4. Their lineages still aren’t clear
Evidence suggests that the various species of mammoth regularly interbred with one another, forming hybrids and really making the lives of modern palaeontologists quite a lot more difficult.
As is the case with any ancient animal, the fossil record is limited, often to a single bone or simply fragments, but as our technology progresses, scientists are making better use of these scarce remains.
5. Theirs is the oldest DNA we’ve got
In 2001, three specimens of mammoth tooth were processed to extract DNA. One was from a 600,000-year-old woolly mammoth and the other two were from Steppe mammoths, dated to an incredible 1.65 million years old.
The previous record for intact DNA from ancient remains came from samples that were somewhere between 560,000 and 780,000 years old, so this find shatters the previous record, as well as answers the question of whether DNA could survive past the 1,000,000-year mark.
Steppe mammoth DNA is the oldest DNA ever discovered and opens up a whole bunch of questions about what else we may be able to extract from the permafrost, in terms of ancient human or other exciting lost animal lineages. 4 5
6. This brought us some incredible insights
What these DNA secrets have shown is that there were two separate lineages of Steppe mammoth in Siberia at the time. One of which led to the Eurasian Woolly mammoth, and the other an as-yet undocumented lineage that spawned the first mammoth colonisers of North America.
They also show that a lot of the cold-adapted protein changes that are found in Woolly mammoths were already present in their Steppe ancestors before the species separated. Finally, the discovery suggests that the South American [Columbian mammoth] was a by-product of a steamy hybridisation session between these two lineages.
It’s amazing to think that on that site, where the samples were found, the history of two species diverged, and as technology for sequencing and identifying DNA improves, researchers, are revealing what life on prehistoric Earth was like in resolutions never before possible. 6
7. They may have persisted until 33,000 years ago
The most recent remains of the Steppe mammoth come from China and Mongolia, where it’s possible some populations were able to resist extinction for much longer than their Western relatives, most of whom may have disappeared around 200,000 years ago.
It’s possible that the woolly mammoths moved back into their turf and displaced the larger, less adaptable ancestors, which would have been a bit ungrateful of them to do.
Little is known about their extinction, but more evidence will likely emerge from the permafrost as it curls back to expose new remains every year, and there’s a fair chance human hunting had something to do with it.
Human remains and butchering marks have been found on Steppe mammoth carcasses found in modern Poland, and Homo heidelbergensis, the first human megafaunal specialist hunter was thought to be responsible. 7
Steppe Mammoth Fact-File Summary
Scientific Classification
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Proboscidea |
| Family: | Elephantidae |
| Genus: | Mammuthus |
| Species: | Trogontherii |
Fact Sources & References
- Adrian M. Lister (2010), “The West Runton mammoth (Mammuthus trogontherii) and its evolutionary significance”, Science Direct.
- “Steppe Mammoth”, Academic Accelerator.
- Joshua John Porter (2022), “Reconstructing Bison and Mammoth Migration During the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene of Central Texas Using Strontium Isotopes”, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville.
- Regis Debruyne (2008), “Out of America: Ancient DNA Evidence for a New World Origin of Late Quaternary Woolly Mammoths”, Elsevier Ltd.
- Tom van der Valk (2021), “Million-year-old DNA sheds light on the genomic history of mammoths”, nature.
- Ewen Callaway (2021), “ Ewen Callaway; (2021). “Million-year-old mammoth genomes shatter record for oldest ancient DNA”, Sci Hub.
- Kamilla Pawłowska (2014), “‘Steppe’ mammoth (Mammuthus trogontherii) remains in their geological and cultural context from Bełchatów (Poland): A consideration of human exploitation in the Middle Pleistocene”, Science Direct.