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Pushed to Their Limits: Mammoths in Miniature
As the last mammoths became isolated in the far corners of the Northern Hemisphere, an interesting thing
happened, they actually shrank in size. Over time, mammoths evolved smaller bodies as their range diminished.
Rising sea levels, due to melting ice sheets, trapped some mammoths on islands. Other mammoths swam to
and colonized islands, such as California’s Channel Islands. Here, smaller mammoths were adapted to island
life better than their larger, mainland cousins.
The pygmy mammoth of California’s Channel Islands was only about the size of a large horse and was a separate
species from the woolly mammoth or larger Columbian mammoths of the mainland. This mammoth species
was specially adapted to island life where smaller mammoths had the advantage; they ate less food and were
more agile, navigating hillier terrain more easily than their massive mainland cousins.
Some groups of woolly mammoths survived on small islands well past the end of the Pleistocene. Woolly
mammoths lived until 5,700 years ago on St. Paul Island, Alaska; and some roamed on Wrangel Island, Siberia,
until about 3,700 years ago.
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