Mammuthus exilis

The pygmy mammoth or Channel Islands mammoth is an extinct species of dwarf mammoth native to the northern Channel Islands off the coast of southern California during the Late Pleistocene. It was descended from the Columbian mammoth of mainland North America, which are suggested to have colonised the islands around 250–150,000 years ago. At only 1.72–2.02 m (5.6–6.6 ft) tall at the shoulder, it was around 17% the size of its mainland ancestor. The species became extinct around 13,000 years ago, coinciding with major environmental change and the arrival of humans in the Channel Islands.

Mammuthus exilis

Franko Fonseca from Redondo Beach, USA · CC BY-SA 2.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Also called
pygmy mammothPBDB
Sits inside
MammuthusPBDB
Diet
grazerPBDB, for Mammuthus
Life habit
ground dwellingPBDB, for Elephantidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria

Time the record covers

At most 199 thousand years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 210 ka and 11.7 ka, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Pleistocene — about 2 of 2 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 0 of 2 occurrences213 ka–189 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences189 ka–166 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences166 ka–142 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences142 ka–118 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences118 ka–95 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences95 ka–71 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences71 ka–47 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences47 ka–24 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences24 ka–0 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences710 ka0 Mya

2 occurrences of Mammuthus exilis on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

2 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

1 formation

Santa Rosa Island — 34.01°N, 120.19°W

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The named rock units Mammuthus exilis has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 1 occurrence has no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Mammuthus exilis and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Mammuthus exilis and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

5 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 2 sites for Mammuthus exilis, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

2 references

Each of the 2 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Mammuthus exilis

Credit
Franko Fonseca from Redondo Beach, USA
Licence
CC BY-SA 2.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Mammuthus exilis was found in Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itMammuthus through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Maglio 1970)