Mammuthus meridionalis

Also known as Southern Mammoth

Southern mammoths were towering proboscideans that roamed the temperate woodlands and floodplains of Early Pleistocene Eurasia. Lacking the dense woolly coat of their colder-climate descendants, they possessed enormous curved tusks spanning up to four meters and relied on high shoulder humps of muscle and fat. Matriarchal herds traversed river basins, shaping forest ecosystems through browsing before transitioning environments favored their descendants, the steppe mammoths.