Mammoths didn’t just look like elephants — they were actually part of the elephant family!
Modern elephants and mammoths both belong to the same family, called Elephantidae. But here’s something interesting: mammoths didn’t turn into the elephants we see today. Instead, they were more like distant cousins.
The elephant family first appeared in Africa around 7 million years ago and then split into three different branches.
- One branch led to today’s African elephants,
- another led to Asian elephants,
- and the third branch became the mammoths — known scientifically as Mammuthus.
So, what made mammoths different from modern elephants?
We asked mammoth expert Professor Adrian Lister, and here’s what he had to say:
“If you look at a woolly mammoth, it had a thick coat of hair and a sloping back — tall at the shoulders and slanting down toward the tail. That’s quite different from today’s elephants.”
And their tusks? Totally unique. Are mammoths and elephants related?
“Mammoth tusks didn’t just curve — they spiraled in two directions,” Adrian explains. “Elephant tusks today only curve gently in one direction.”
There were also clear differences in their skulls, teeth, ears, and tails. Mammoths had much smaller ears and shorter tails than modern elephants.
So yes — mammoths and elephants are definitely related, but they took slightly different paths through evolution. Think of them as ancient cousins from the same big, elephant family!