| Imperial Mammoth Temporal range: Pliocene-Pleistocene |
|
|---|---|
| Mounted skeleton | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Proboscidea |
| Family: | Elephantidae |
| Genus: | Mammuthus |
| Species: | M. imperator |
| Binomial name | |
| Mammuthus imperator (Leidy, 1858) |
|
The Imperial Mammoth (Mammuthus imperator) is an extinct species of mammoth endemic to North America from the Pliocene through Pleistocene, living from 4.9 mya—11,000 years ago.[1]
It was the largest mammoth species on the Western Hemisphere reaching a height of 4.9 m (16 ft) at the shoulder. M. imperator ranged from Canada to New Mexico about 4.6 million - 17,000 years ago (Late Pleistocene). It was slightly larger than its more famous cousins, the Woolly Mammoth, the Steppe mammoth and several others. Because it was much warmer in central and southwestern North America than in northern Eurasia and North America, the Imperial Mammoth is not presumed to have had a thick fur coat like some of its relatives. It lived alongside the Columbian Mammoth (Mammuthus columbi) which is often confused with M. imperator, because of its similar size and fossil range. The primary way to distinguish the two mammoths is that M. imperator's tusks curve to the point of overlap, whereas M. columbi's tusks do not. M. imperator was originally described as a fossil species of Elephas by Joseph Leidy in 1858.[2]
Excellent fossils of the Imperial Mammoth have been found in the La Brea Tar Pits, in southern California.[3]