Large Southern Mammoth Molar - Serbia

This is a large and well preserved molar of the "Southern Mammoth", Mammuthus meridionalis. It comes from the early Pleistocene gravel deposits of the Donau River in Serbia. Southern Mammoth fossils are far rarer than the more recent Mammoth fossils coming from the North Sea deposits.

The specimen is quite large at 7 inches long and 4 inches tall, and the preservation is far better than most.

Mammuthus meridionalis, or the southern mammoth, is an extinct species of mammoth endemic to Europe and central Asia from the Gelasian stage of the Early Pleistocene, living from 2.5–1.5 mya. With a height of about 4 m. (13 ft) and estimated weight of 8 to 10 tons, M. meridionalis is one of the largest proboscideans to have ever lived. Its molars had low crowns and a small number of thick enamel ridges, adapted to a woodland diet of leaves and shrubs. This indicates it lived on a relatively warm climate and probably lacked the dense fur of the more recent Woolly Mammoth.