Provenance: Italian private collection

The woolly mammoth, also called woolly or furred mammoth, is a member of the elephant family adapted to cold-temperate conditions. However, the extinct species is not a direct ancestor of today's elephants. The mammoth reached a shoulder height of 3-3.5 m and was thus less gigantic than perhaps originally assumed. Today, the most common explanation for the near extinction of the iconic animal about 11,500 years ago is dramatic climate change with rapid temperature rise and increased precipitation, which among other things caused the vast grassy steppes that provided the ice age giants with their food to disappear.

The present object is a well-preserved massive fossil femur of a woolly mammoth. It is the longest bone of the gigantic animal.