But though there was food in Beringia, it was still cold, bitterly cold. The much of the year, temperatures would have remained below freezing 24 hours a day. How did the ice age animal survive in such a harsh world?

 

The more hair, the better for a start. Mask oxen can stay warm in temperatures of minus 50 degree centigrade, thanks to their chill-proof woolly coats. In fact, they have the warmest fur of any mammal. They have an extremely long outer layer over another very dense fine wool layer beneath, a combination so effective that even in winter, the mask ox can overheat if it runs too far. From frozen mammoths’ remains, we know they had a very similar fur coat, made up of strands of hair up to a meter long.