Pygmy Mammoth
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Order: Proboscidea
Family: Elephantidae

[Photo] Reconstruction of the Channel Island Pygmy Mammoth, Mammuthus exilis, of Pleistocene California. (C) Stanton F. Fink. URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Mammuthus_exilis.JPG

Copyright (C) Stanton F. Fink Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License".

The Pygmy Mammoth, also known as the Channel Islands Mammoth, (Mammuthus exilis) was a dwarfed descendant of full-sized mammoths, either Mammuthus columbi, the Columbian Mammoth, or the Imperial Mammoth, M. imperator. M. exilis lived on an island known as Santa Rosae, which was, during the last Ice Age, composed of the northern Channel Islands of California of Santa Cruz Island, Santa Rosa Island, San Miguel Island, and Anacapa Island, with remains found on the first three islands. It is believed that the ancestral mammoth swam across the Santa Barbara Channel from Southern California to Santa Rosae around 20,000 B.C.

The Pygmy Mammoth went extinct over 12,000 years ago, due to a combination of hunting by prehistoric Indians, climatic changes, and loss of habitat due to Santa Rosae splitting into Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa, San Miguel, and Anacapa Islands because of rising sea levels.

Alive, M. exilis would have stood about 120-240cm (4-8 feet) high at the shoulder.

The Pygmy Mammoth should not be confused with the Wrangel Island Mammoth, which was a dwarf race of the Tundra Mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) and which died out around 1700 B.C.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmy_Mammoth

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