Mammuthus meridionalis

Mammuthus meridionalis
Temporal range: Early Pleistocene
Mounted skeleton of the Durfort mammoth, National Museum of Natural History, France (Muséum national d'histoire naturelle)
Scientific classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Proboscidea
Family: Elephantidae
Genus: Mammuthus
Species:
M. meridionalis
Binomial name
Mammuthus meridionalis
(Nesti, 1825)
Synonyms
  • Archidiskodon meridionalis
  • Mammuthus gromovi (Alexeeva & Garutt, 1965)
  • Mammuthus meridionalis vestinus
  • M. m. voigtstedtensis (Dietrich, 1965)

Mammuthus meridionalis, sometimes called the southern mammoth, is an extinct species of mammoth native to Eurasia during the Early Pleistocene. Reaching a size exceeding modern elephants, unlike later Eurasian mammoth species, it was largely native to temperate climates and probably did not have a thick layer of fur. First appearing around 2.5 million years ago, probably descending from Mammuthus rumanus, it survived latest in Europe until around 800,000 years ago when it was replaced by the steppe mammoth (Mammuthus trogontherii) and the straight-tusked elephant (Palaeoloxodon antiquus). It is the likely ancestor of the dwarf Mammuthus creticus on the island of Crete.