Woolly mammoths (mammuthus primigenius) have been in the news a lot. A few weeks ago we were told that they were going to be revived by some ingenious insemination of elephants using woolly mammoth DNA.
Now we are told that space impacts may have wiped out woolly mammoths and early human settlers in North America according to this BBC News article.
However, what hasn’t been considered is the smell. It was the illustration at that BBC News article that put this thought into my mind. It’s all that wool you see, on such a large animal. I bet they got pretty hot in the summer. It would have added up to a significant pong.
Maybe smelly mammoths would be more appropriate than woolly mammoths.