Mammoth
by Eddy H.
My animal’s name is the Mammoth, and a mammoth is a mammal. A mammal means that it has 3 ear bones. A mammoth looks like an elephant, but a mammoth has woolly fur, and it has hooves and a trunk. Mammoths lived almost everywhere. They were very popular. Two interesting facts about the mammoth are that he has horizontal tooth replacement, and that the myths from the Cyclops came from the hole in the mammoth’s skull.
The traits that the mammoth evolved first was a spine and skull which is the vertebrates, and then they evolved into gnathostomes which means jaws, but then they evolved into tetrapods, which means that they have 4 legs. Then they evolved into amniotes, which means that they can lay eggs on land. Then they evolved into synapsids, which means that they have a hole in the back of the skull. Then they became mammals, which means that they have three ear bones. Then they evolved into placentals, getting the trait to give live birth, but the most advanced trait that they have is ungulates, which means that they have hooves.
In our cladogram the mammoth is most closely related to the horse, the whale, Irish elk, and the water pig. I used the cladogram to figure this out by tracing all of the braches that all share the most recent trait. My animal’s most advanced trait is the ungulates, which means that they have tusks. I knew this because I traced the branch down to the most recent trait. The most important difference is that the mammoth has the big tusks and the trunk and the others don’t.
Last updated April 7, 2007.