Woolly mammoth

Meaning of name: Mammuthus primigenius means ‘first-born mammoth’

Named by: Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, 1799

Time period: Middle Pleistocene-late Holocene

Size: 2.8-3.15m tall for males, 2.3-2.6m tall for females

Diet: Herbivore

Origin: North America and Eurasia

Fossils seen at: Dublin, Belfast, London, Edinburgh, Paris

Interesting fact: Although mammoths were largely driven to global extinction by humans around the end of the Pleistocene, one population of woolly mammoths managed to survive on Wrangel Island off the coast of Russia up until about 3,700 years ago, when human civilization had already begun.