Steppe mammoth

Mammuthus trogontherii, commonly called the steppe mammoth, is an extinct species of mammoth that ranged over most of northern Eurasia during the Early and Middle Pleistocene, approximately 1.7 million to 200,000 years ago. The evolution of the steppe mammoth marked the initial adaptation of the mammoth lineage towards cold environments, with the species probably being covered in a layer of fur. One of the largest mammoth species, it evolved in East Asia during the Early Pleistocene, around 1.7 million years ago, before migrating into North America around 1.3 million years ago, and into Europe during the Early/Middle Pleistocene transition, around 1 to 0.7 million years ago (replacing the earlier mammoth species Mammuthus meridionalis). It was the ancestor of the woolly mammoth, Columbian mammoth and dwarf Sardinian mammoth of the later Pleistocene. In Europe, its range overlapped with that of the temperate adapted straight-tusked elephant (Palaeoloxodon antiquus), with steppe mammoths and straight-tusked elephants generally alternately occupying northern Europe during glacial periods and interglacials, respectively, though at rare intervals they lived alongside each other at some locations.