When Mammoths Walked the Earth
Imagine a time when enormous Columbian mammoths roamed the hills and flatlands where the city of Los Angeles is today. Far to the north, their relatives, the woolly mammoths, grazed at the edges of vast ice sheets. In caves in southern Europe, prehistoric people painted pictures of the huge, shaggy mammals. Growing to weights of ten tons and distinguished by enormous curling tusks, mammoths were the largest land animals of the Ice Age. Today, discoveries of mammoth fossils--found in places ranging from tar pits and sinkholes to frozen tundra and the bottom of the sea--are expanding our view into the lives of these fascinating giants.
A Japanese edition of When Mammoths Walked the Earth was published by Shinjusha Ltd., Tokyo, in 2005.
New discoveries of mammoth fossils continue to tell us more about the behavior and world of these fascinating beasts. Arnold introduces the subject in six accessible chapters that consider the first and last mammoths, their relatives, and the value of mammoths to prehistoric peoples. The information is brief but thorough, with realistic watercolor illustrations depicting the giant animals and their surroundings. The emphasis is how researching mammoth bones helps us learn about the animals' behavior, surroundings, and the reasons they became extinct.
Giants of the Ice Age, the woolly mammoths roamed the ice-covered steppes 26,000 years ago, while their lesser-known cousins, the Columbian mammoths, wandered the warmer regions of the southern U.S. and Mexico. The book describes the Elephantidae family tree, including modern-day elephants, mammoths, mastodons, and even dwarf mammoths and discusses fossil remains found in bogs, lakes, and tar pits as well as fully preserved specimens found in the permafrost of Siberia and Alaska. Recent findings are included, too, for instance, the recovering of Jarkov's mammoth by French explorer Bernard Buigues in 1997 and the recovery of "Baby Dima," a young woolly mammoth calf discovered by goldminers in Siberia in 1977. ... The picture-book format may appeal to science readers too young to access the text, so there's something for everyone.