Mammuthus primigenius

myminifactory

The woolly mammoth, Mammuthus primigenius, ruled the Pleistocene landscape until its demise in the early Holocene epoch. This magnificent creature was one of the last to thrive in a long line of mammoths that began with Mammuthus subplanifrons in the early Pliocene era. Woolly mammoths diverged from steppe mammoths approximately 400,000 years ago in East Asia, forging their own path as a distinct species. Their closest living relatives are the Asian elephants, and their physical characteristics and behaviors have been extensively studied due to the discovery of frozen remains in Siberia and Alaska, along with skeletons, teeth, stomach contents, dung, and vivid depictions from prehistoric cave paintings. For centuries, mammoth remains were known in Asia before they finally reached European shores in the 17th century. The origins of these relics sparked intense debate, often being attributed to legendary creatures. However, Georges Cuvier conclusively identified the mammoth as an extinct elephant species in 1796. This is a scan of the first lumbar vertebra from an adult Shropshire mammoth, expertly captured using a Canon 5DS R camera and Stackshot 3x with a turntable to generate 108 high-quality images. These images were then meticulously processed using Agisoft Photoscan at the highest levels of detail. This remarkable object has been carefully scanned by Fossils in Shropshire.