WOOLLY MAMMOTH HAIR. ...

Description

WOOLLY MAMMOTH HAIR
Mammuthus primigenius
Pleistocene
Siberia
This is a rare and comparatively large sample of woolly mammoth "wool", recovered from the frozen carcass of an Ice Age mammoth in the wilds of Siberia. Fewer than forty specimens of this ancient behemoth have been recovered to date, of which all but four have been mere fragments. The mammoth's skin contained numerous sebaceous glands which secreted greasy fat into the hair to improve further the insulating qualities of its thick shaggy coat, the hairs of which could grow up to 20 inches long. The present sample shows good variation of size between the hairs, some almost as fine as human hair and others that measure almost 1/32 inches in sectional diameter. Mammoth hair is extremely difficult to obtain due to the fact that soft body tissue rarely fossilizes, and the sample offered here represents a rather larger quantity than one usually finds. Presented in a 12¼ x 8¼ Riker mount.

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