African Bush Elephant vs. Woolly Mammoth

[rock]

African Bush Elephant - Loxodonta africana
African elephants are the heaviest land animal, and the second tallest in the Animal Kingdom. They are a sexually dimorphic species; males appear larger than females. The height of a bull at his shoulder is about twelve feet (about 3.75 m), when the female’s height is nine feet (about 3 m). They have enormous ears, each measuring about four feet (120-125 cm) across. They have a unique nose that is simply a long, boneless trunk extending from the upper lip. The trunk usually measures about five feet long (about 150 cm) and weighs around 300 pounds (about 135 kg). The two finger-like projections on the tip are so dexterous they can pick a blade of grass. The trunk itself is so strong it is capable of lifting 600 pounds (250- 275 kg). Their incisor teeth develop into tusks about 8 feet long (245-250 cm) and can weigh about 130 pounds (60 kg) each. The only other teeth they have are four molars which are replaced three times throughout their lives after the previous set wears down. African elephants have dark gray skin which is scattered with black hairs that wear off through the years. As a result the adults are mostly hairless. Their skin is about 2 1/2 inches (2-4 cm) thick, but flies, mosquitoes and parasites still penetrate it. The African bush elephant is the largest living terrestrial animal, with males reaching 6 to 7.5 metres (19.7 to 24.6 ft) in length, 4 metres (13.1 ft) in height at the shoulder, and weighing 7 t (15,000 lb). Females are much smaller, reaching 5.4 to 6.9 metres (17.7 to 22.6 ft) in length, 2.7 metres (8.9 ft) in height at the shoulder, and weighing 3 t (6,600 lb) ,elephants are herbivores and as such they eat plant foods such as fruits , grass , bark , vegetables , nuts , roots , bushes , leaves and flowers , although they are classed as herbivores they do eat small portions of meat such as fish .


Woolly Mammoth - Mammuthus primigenius
The woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) is an extinct species of mammoth that lived during the Pleistocene until its extinction in the early Holocene epoch. It was one of the last in a line of mammoth species, beginning with Mammuthus subplanifrons in the early Pliocene. The woolly mammoth diverged from the steppe mammoth about 400,000 years ago in East Asia. Its closest extant relative is the Asian elephant. 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. The renowned Woolly mammoth, M. primigenius, was probably the most successful mammoth that occupied the whole of Eurasia and North America. The European form was considerably larger than North Siberian specimens, surpassing 6 tonnes (6.6 tons) in body mass and 315 cm at the shoulders on average, with particulary big specimens exceeding 8 tonnes (8.8 tons) in mass

Credit to Wikipedia

[arethousleepy]

The woolly mammoth would take this. Just like in the case of Paraceratherium, it may not have had as effective weaponry, tusks in this case due to their curvature, but it is larger and with a size advantage it would be able to overpower the African Elephant.

[rock]

May 27, 2019 18:26:35 GMT 5 arethousleepy said:

The woolly mammoth would take this. Just like in the case of Paraceratherium, it may not have had as effective weaponry, tusks in this case due to their curvature, but it is larger and with a size advantage it would be able to overpower the African Elephant.

the mammoth would take this in my oppion as well due to having larger tusks and weighing more but recent studies show that a woolly mammoth [not a steppe or columbian mammoth] was around the same size as todays african bush elephants so this is pretty close and i can see the elephant winning a few times out of ten , i give this to the mammoth 7/10 .

[dinosauria101]

Well yeah, I suppose I may favor the mammoth too. Its tusks are big enough to give it the win, and it's got fat and hair as protection, not to mention it's a bit more robust

[Infinity Blade]

The two elephantids should be about the same mass.



As for the thread: I cannot stress how much we need to understand how elephant combat works to make an accurate judgement.

I used to think this was just a matter of tusks, but it's more complicated than that. Elephant fights favor size over tusk possession when neither elephant has an advantage in musth status (Chelliah & Sukumar, 2013; Hollister-Smith et al., 2007). That is, when two bulls fight, it's the bigger, stronger elephant who consistently wins, whether it has tusks or not. In Asian elephants – where a high proportion of tuskless bulls exist – tuskless males are not necessarily inferior in fighting ability because they often make up for their lack of tusks with greater body size, as well as having a more robust physique, more muscular trunk, and more developed skull (see this post in the Asian elephant profile->). 

Tusks seem to be employed for goring only after their opponent has been rendered vulnerable in one way or another, whether through physically overpowering/outwrestling them (see this post in the African elephant profile->) or through the delivery of blunt force trauma (Chelliah & Sukumar, 2013). Of course, the bigger and stronger elephant is going to have an advantage in this regard. If the larger/stronger elephant has good tusks to gore with after it has overpowered or beaten its foe, that's a bonus (and it's a bonus many Asian bulls and most African bulls have). But as demonstrated above, it is not a requirement to defeat, or even kill (1->, 2->), a foe, and when one elephant is bigger, it will win all the same with or without tusks. It's only when musth status and body size are equal (i.e. a ≤10 cm difference in shoulder height) that tusks become a decisive factor in victory (Chelliah & Sukumar, 2013).

So what does that mean for this match? The African bush elephant certainly has tusks better shaped for goring than the woolly mammoth. But Late Pleistocene mammoths had stouter leg bones than modern elephants. This suggests that, although woolly mammoths were not really bigger than bush elephants, they were more robust and stronger animals.

Late Pleistocene mastodont and mammoth limb bones were similar in length to bones of modern elephants, but their midshaft diameters were much greater. This disproportion in limb cross sections may also be noted in other prehistoric taxa, such as equids and camelids. Although modern and extinct forms are comparable in terms of statue, the leg bones of extinct forms were much more massive.

Haynes (1993)->

The woolly mammoth also had a body that was clearly more robust than that of the African bush elephant (Fig. 9 of Larramendi et al. (2017)->).

That strength/robusticity advantage will allow it to overpower the bush elephant and ultimately triumph. Woolly mammoth wins.

[rock]

May 29, 2019 20:48:20 GMT 5 Infinity Blade said:

The woolly mammoth really isn't really bigger than the bush elephant.

thanks for the size comparison, anyhow yes the comman north american mammoth is around the same size as todays african bush elephants.

[jhg]

I'm pretty sure they're tied in size. This is a tough one to make a call on.

[dinosauria101]

I think I might reconsider my pick, depending on the elephant's tusks. How long might they have been?