For the mammoths, this was a death sentence. The cold, dry grasslands they relied on began to shrink. As precipitation increased, forests and peatlands invaded the open steppe. The specific nutrient-rich grasses mammoths relied on were replaced by mosses, shrubs, and trees that the mammoths could not digest efficiently.
are close cousins that once roamed the Earth simultaneously, their fates diverged sharply about 4,000 years ago. The extinction of the woolly mammoth while elephants survived is not due to a single catastrophic event, but rather a perfect storm of , dietary specialization , and human pressure . 1. Habitat Loss and Climate Change why did mammoths go extinct but not elephants
To understand their diverging fates, we must first look at where they lived. For the mammoths, this was a death sentence