Mammoth, MAM uhth, was a prehistoric animal closely related to present-day elephants. Mammoths were huge, lumbering beasts. Some measured more than 14 feet (4.3 meters) high at the shoulders. Mammoths had trunks and tusks. Many had tusks 13 feet (4 meters) long. The tusks curved down from the animal's upper jaw, then curved up and sometimes crossed in front of the trunk. Certain mammoths, called woolly or hairy mammoths, had long hair on their bodies. This hair helped protect them from the severe cold of the Pleistocene Epoch, a time marked by a series of ice ages.