Written by David Leggett | 5th July 2018
A clash of giants, or a meeting of equals?
A childrens’ story-book image perhaps – two Ice Age icons coming face-to-face, both dressed for the cold!
- Woolly Mammoth and Woolly Rhinoceros (Original) (Signed) by Eric Tansley
- Image source: Illustration Art Gallery
The woolly mammoth and rhinoceros lived during the period known as the Pleistocene – or Ice Age – as much as 45,000 years ago. At a time when much of Northern Europe was under ice and snow, it was vital to be insulated from the cold – both animals wore suits of thick hair. Mostly extinct by the end of the Ice Age – some 10,000 years ago – along with all other so-called 'mega-mammals,' somehow the mammoth has stayed long in our imaginations, perhaps due to the fact that humans have long been fascinated by Elephants of all species. Just think back to 'The Jungle Book’s Colonel Hathi, and of course more recent Pixar 'Ice Age' movies – a set of comic characters, with stories built around Manny the lonely woolly mammoth.
Image TM and © 2016 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
Woolly mammoths (Mammuthus primigenius) could reach 3.4 metres at the shoulder and weigh some 6 metric tonnes, whereas the woolly rhinoceros (Coelodonta antiquitatis) at 2 metres weighed in at about 2.5 tonnes – no lightweights, either of them. Today’s elephants and rhinoceroses weigh in the region of 6.3 and 1.4 tonnes respectively – only the rhino appears to have ‘lost weight’!
Image source: Royal BC Museum
With enormous curved Tusks as long as 4.2 metres, the woolly mammoth was truly awe-inspiring. But then no less fearsome-looking than its Rhinoceros compatriot. Luckily, both were vegetarians – fossilised Mammoth stomach contents have even included Buttercups!
Image source: Walking with Dinosaurs
This week’s Mammoth & Ice Age auction at Catawiki on Sunday 8th June lists not only a trio of woolly rhinoceros upper skulls, 72, 75 and 76 cm in length respectively, but a fine pair of mammoth tusks – 72 and 99 cm long. The largest of the skulls, freed from the Siberian permafrost near Kemerovo, comes from the collection of a North Holland palaeontologist, who was also lucky enough when caving in Eastern Europe many years ago to discover a wonderfully intact cave bear skull - also at auction this week. Check them out!
Don't forget to check our Fossil auction each week to discover what treasures David and his team selected and maybe bring home a piece of the past for yourself.
Discover more fossils woolly | mammoth
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