1. Fresh buttercups were in the mouth and stomach of the Berezovka mammoth.

Its stomach contained three seeds from plants that produce delicate, yellow buttercups. Fragments of other flowers were in its stomach. No large flowers were in its mouth.

2. People have been served mammoth steaks.¹⁴⁸

These reports persist but are never specific enough to verify. For example, Lydekker reported that “sleigh dogs, as well as Yakuts themselves, have often made a hearty meal on mammoth flesh thousands of years old.” ¹⁴⁹ Lydekker never visited Russia, let alone Siberia. The following report by Herz appears valid. Herz wrote in his diary that the Berezovka mammoth “looks as fresh as well-frozen beef or horse meat. It looked so appetizing that we wondered for some time whether we should not taste it, but no one would venture to take it into his mouth, and horse flesh was given in the preference. The dogs cleaned up whatever mammoth meat was thrown them.” ¹⁵⁰  In 1982, construction workers in Siberia uncovered a frozen mammoth and fed it to dogs.¹⁵¹

3. Mammoths are encased in ice. Their preservation is complete.

Charles Lyell popularized this myth by writing that mammoth remains are found in icebergs and frozen gravel.¹⁵² There are very few reports of complete encasement in ice.¹⁵³ Other mammoths were near or partially in ice. Herz and Pfizenmayer only believed that their Berezovka mammoth was once fully encased in ice. Most frozen mammoths are found partially preserved in frozen muck or sediments.

4. The mammoth’s small ears, short tail and legs, and anal flap reduced its heat loss in cold Arctic air. This shows that the mammoth was an Arctic animal.

Animals with large ears and long tails, such as hares and foxes, survive quite well in the Arctic. The legs and tails of Arctic foxes are similar to those of foxes living in warmer climates. While a slight correlation exists between smaller ears in colder habitats, other factors play a stronger role, such as metabolic efficiency, food availability, and adjustable insulation. The African elephant also has a prominent anal flap.¹⁵⁴

5. Mammoths used their long curved tusks to remove snow from plants they ate on the ground. Most tusks show these wear marks.

Wild elephants live far from snow, yet they also have wear marks on their shorter, less vulnerable tusks. Mammoth tusks do not show extreme abrasion from being scraped over rocky soil in search of food under snow. (Besides, “shoveling” snow with a long, curved stick is a good way to break the stick.) A wild elephant spends about 16 hours a day eating and searching for food.¹⁵⁵  If food were buried under snow, mammoths would not have enough hours in the day to gather sufficient food to survive.

6. The curve in the mammoth tusks almost forms a circle.

“Not one tusk in ten forms a third of a circle, not one in twenty even a semicircle.”¹⁵⁶ Artists and museums have popularized this misconception.

7. The wool on woolly mammoths protected them from the Siberian cold.

The term “woolly” is misleading because true wool has tiny, overlapping scales that interlock and trap air, making it an excellent insulator. Unlike sheep’s wool, mammoth “wool” is only short, coarse underhair. Mammoth hair, some of it long and bristly, has relatively few fibers per square inch.

8. A mammoth’s thick skin and hairy body protected it from the Arctic cold.

See the earlier section titled “Mammoth Characteristics and Environment” on page 270.

9. Mammoths were larger than today’s elephants.

Mammoths were larger than Asian elephants, but smaller than African elephants. Usually, mammoths’ tusks and heads were larger than those of all elephants.¹⁵⁷

10. Larger animals generate more heat per unit of body surface area. Therefore, the mammoth would stay warm, even in the Arctic winter.

The first sentence is true. However, an Arctic mammal must avoid having its warm skin melt snow, as explained earlier. The mammoth’s skin would tend to melt snow, especially if the animal lay down. Its high ground pressure would compress and reduce the insulation provided by its hair. (Elephants doze standing up, but when they feel safe, they will lie down for a few hours of sleep.) Sick or injured mammoths, unable to stand, would probably not have survived. Young mammoths were even more vulnerable. They generated less heat per unit of body surface area and probably spent more time lying down. Newborn mammoths, wet and initially unable to walk, could not have survived for long lying on permafrost, especially if they were born during the long winter. (Elephants are born at all times of the year.)