Ralph Peterson, age 14, of Wichita, Kansas, for his question:

Were mammoths bigger than elephants?

The largest African elephant reaches a shoulder height of 11 feet and his mighty tusks may be six to eight feet long. This giant is the largest living land animal. But his extinct mammoth relatives would have looked down on his puny size. Some of their fossilized remains belonged to monsters that stood 14 feet at shoulder level. Their massive heads and bulky bodies far outweighed any living elephant. Their curved tusks often measured 13 feet. One species, called the woolly mammoth, wore a thick shaggy coat and made his gigantic appearance during the last ice ages.

The elephant family tree began to emerge during the Pleistocene Period. Several species of the gigantic ancestors evolved and wandered in herds through Europe and Asia, Africa and North America. Two species developed larger brains and gave rise to the African and Indian elephants of today. The last of their mammoth relatives became extinct about 10;000 years ago, as the glaciers of the last ice age began to retreat.