Very distant cousins to the elephants of today, Mammoths are rather large creatures which ranged over Eurasia and North America in the Pleistocene epoch. Adults were anywhere from nine to almost fourteen feet in height depending on the type of mammoth. This large size, a trunk, tusks and general body shape are what the now extinct mammoths have in common with elephants.
Mammoths were also covered in a long, shaggy, black outer coat and a dense, woolly undercoat. This fur is the main difference most laypeople know of.
They have many other subtle differences from a present day elephant, and Klaus was determined to be accurate in as many respects as possible.
He visited the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles, CA, where they have fossilized skeletons of the mammoths, and a great deal of other information pertaining to the creatures. Through this, and other research, Klaus was able to formulate a plan to construct a replica of the giant beast in iron.
Because the sculpture will be placed on a hill next to existing representations of dinosaurs, it was constructed to a larger scale. This will let it be seen for miles.
