Thousands of years ago, enormous furry elephants roam the northern latitudes of Europe, Asia, and North America.

While these animals are now extinct, they were actually around much more recently than most people realize.

And because of where and when they existed, we know a shocking amount about them.

Learn more about Mammatus Primagenius, aka the Wooly Mammoth, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. It's really too bad that the woolly mammoth has gone extinct because they would have been amazing animals to see.

The woolly mammoths are close relatives to modern elephants. Both mammoths and elephants

belong to the same family, elephant T-Day. Today there are only two species of

elephants on Earth, the African and Asian elephants. However, hundreds of thousands of

years ago there were many more species of mammals and elephants on the planet.

In particular, there was at least one species of mammals and elephants on the planet. In particular, there was at least one species of mammoth which roamed on the Asian steps.

The woolly mammoth was a branch of the step mammoth which developed adaptations for colder northern climates.

According to DNA analysis of the woolly mammoth,

its closest living relative would be the Asian elephant,

and more on its DNA in just a bit.

So what exactly is the difference between a woolly mammoth and a

modern elephant? The most obvious difference is the amount of hair, which is the reason

why it's called a woolly mammoth. Modern elephants have very little hair because they live in tropical

latitudes. Many of the adaptations of Asian and African elephants are designed to

cool their bodies and to dissipate heat. Hair would just increase insulation

and it's pretty useless when it's hot.

Wooly Mammus had a very thick layer of long hair

with shorter layers of hair underneath. The closest thing I can compare it to today would be a

muscocks. Fun fact, muscocks fur known as kiviet make some

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