The Irish Elk and the Woolly Mammoth

The Irish Elk, which went extinct some 5000 years ago stood 2.1 meters tall at its shoulders. It carried huge antlers, some 3.6 meter wide.

Until recently, it was widely believed that the Irish Elk went extinct at the end of the last ice age, some 10000 years ago, but recent findings suggest otherwise.

The same is true for the Woolly Mammoth. It was believed to have gone extinct at the end of the ice age. However, it too survived well after that. Current estimates set the final extinction to have happened some 4500 years ago.

Quite interestingly, the Woolly Mammoths that survived beyond the last ice age were considerably smaller than they once were. 10000 years ago, the Woolly Mammoths stood more than 3 meters tall at their shoulders. When they finally went extinct, they were no larger than today's African Elephant, measuring a little over 2 meters at their shoulders.

Also, there is no sign of malnutrition or starvation in either the Irish Elk or the Woolly Mammoth, yet they went extinct over a relatively short time-span. The extinction event some 10000 years ago appears to have been particularly swift and brutal.

Saber-toothed cats, mastodons, giant sloths, woolly rhinos, and many other big, shaggy mammals are widely thought to have died out around the end of the last ice age. Just as living conditions improved, a large number of giant animals disappeared.

Surely, humans cannot have caused all these extinctions, and if malnutrition wasn't the cause of it either, what could it have been?