Woolly Mammoth

The woolly mammoth was a cold-adapted proboscidean engineered for life in Ice Age steppes. Long curved tusks manipulated snow and vegetation, while a high-domed skull anchored massive jaw muscles for grazing tough grasses. Dense underfur, long guard hairs, and a thick fat layer insulated the body against extreme cold. Its eventual disappearance reflects the combined pressures of rapid climate change and human expansion at the end of the Pleistocene.