State Fossil: Columbian Mammoth


Washington's newest state symbol is the Columbian mammoth. Students from Windsor Elementary School near Cheney led a four-year effort to have this behemoth designated as our state fossil in 1998. Mammoth is the common name given to any member of an extinct genus Mammuthus of the elephant family. The first North American mammoths migrated across the Bering Strait from Asia down through Alaska about two million years ago. Nearly all mammoths died out about 10,000 years ago. From studies based on deposits of the Columbian mammoths, M. columbi, it is clear that grasses featured prominently in their diets. The maximum life expectancy of the mammoth would have been 60 to 65 years. The males grew to the size of modern adult elephants. The females were about half the size of the males. Several years ago, fossils of the Columbian mammoth were found on the Olympic Peninsula.
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Updated: 12.12.00
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