Columbian Mammoth Colouring

The Columbian mammoth was one of the largest elephants of the Ice Age. Its scientific name is Mammuthus columbi. Fossils occur from southern Canada across the United States and Mexico and as far south as Costa Rica. National Park Service evidence places the species in North America hundreds of thousands of years ago. Adults often stood about 3.7 to 4.3 metres at the shoulder and could weigh roughly eight or nine tonnes. Unlike its northern woolly relative, it lived mainly in temperate grasslands, parklands and open woodland, so it probably carried much less hair and had larger ears. Its extremely long, curving tusks are its most eye-catching feature. Ridged molars acted like grinders for grasses, leaves, bark and other plants. Trackways and fossil groups suggest mammoths sometimes travelled in herds, and their lifespan may have resembled that of elephants, perhaps reaching around sixty years. Columbian mammoths disappear from the fossil record around 13,000 to 10,000 years ago, near the close of the Pleistocene. No named last animal exists; scientists know the final generations only from bones, teeth and footprints. The reason for their extinction is still debated. A rapidly warming and drying climate changed lakes, grasslands and plant communities. At the same time, people were spreading through the Americas and sometimes hunted or scavenged mammoths. A slow-breeding giant could struggle if food and water became less reliable while even a small number of adults were lost. Most researchers therefore discuss interacting pressures rather than a single dramatic event. For this page, try pale grey, warm brown, sandy beige or cinnamon for the mammoth's skin. Add a slightly darker colour around the shoulders and under the belly, but keep wide highlights on the back. Make the tusks cream or ivory and follow their long curves with smooth pencil strokes. Colour the prairie in gold, yellow-green and olive, the lake blue or turquoise, and the distant mesas peach, rust or violet. The little bird can be any cheerful colour. Use long strokes down the trunk, small curved strokes around wrinkles, and broad horizontal strokes in the water. Leaving open white space around the tusks will help their remarkable length remain clear.

◫ A4 size✎ Bold outlines♡ Ages 3–8

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