Woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) fossil skeleton, 19th-century illustration. The woolly mammoth was one of the last in a line of mammoth species, beginning with Mammuthus subplanifrons in the early Pliocene. M. primigenius diverged from the steppe mammoth, M. trogontherii, about 200,000 years ago in eastern Asia, during the Pleistocene. Its closest extant relative is the Asian elephant. Woolly mammoths became extinct about 10,000 years ago. This artwork was published in an 1864 edition of 'The World Before the Deluge' by Louis Figuier.