Mammoth remains had long been known in Asia before they became known to Europeans in the 17th century. The appearance and behaviour of this species are among the best studied of any prehistoric animal because of the discovery of frozen carcasses in Siberia and Alaska, as well as skeletons, teeth, stomach contents, dung, and depiction from life in prehistoric cave paintings. DNA studies show that the Columbian mammoth was a hybrid between woolly mammoths and another lineage descended from steppe mammoths. Its closest extant relative is the Asian elephant. The woolly mammoth began to diverge from the steppe mammoth about 800,000 years ago in East Asia. It was one of the last in a line of mammoth species, beginning with Mammuthus subplanifrons in the early Pliocene. The woolly mammoth ( Mammuthus primigenius) is an extinct species of mammoth that lived during the Pleistocene until its extinction in the Holocene epoch.
