On February 17, four postage stamps dedicated to the mammoth fauna were put into postal circulation in the Fauna of Russia series

The mammoth fauna is a complex of mammals, which was formed in late Pleistocene (about 10-100 thousand years ago) in the extratropical zone of Eurasia and North America and migrated in accordance with changes in the glacier boundaries to the north or to the south.

It comprises about 80 species of mammals, who, owing to a number of anatomical, physiological and behavioral adaptations, managed to adjust to living in the cold continental climate of forest-steppe and tundra-steppe regions with their permafrost, severe winter with little snow and hot sunny summer. All representatives are divided into two large groups: herbivores (mammoths, bison, red deer and Irish elk, saigas, horses, rhinos, muskoxen, roe deer, elk) and carnivores or predators (cave lions, bears and hyenas, wolves, wolverines, foxes, and Arctic foxes).

Around the turn of the Holocene period (about 11 thousand years ago), due to sudden warming and humidifying of the climate, which led to thawing of tundra steppes and other radical changes in landscapes, the mammoth fauna broke up. Some species, such as the mammoth, the woolly rhinoceros, the Irish elk, and the cave lion, perished from the earth. A number of large species of tylopods and ungulates (wild camels, horses, yaks, saigas) survived in the steppes of Central Asia. Bison and wild asses adapted to life in completely different natural zones. Reindeer and caribous, muskoxen, Arctic foxes, wolverines, Arctic hares and other species were driven out far to the north.

The postage stamps provide images of representatives of the mammoth fauna: extinct – a cave bear and a woolly rhinoceros with cubs; currently available – an elk and a muskox.

In addition to the issue of the postage stamps, JSC Marka produced First Day Covers and special cancels for Moscow, St. Petersburg, Veliky Novgorod, Vladivostok, Kaliningrad, Krasnoyarsk, Nizhny Novgorod, Novosibirsk, Penza, Sevastopol and Yaroslavl, as well as four unstamped postcards, an illustrated envelope with postage stamps, a label and a First Day Cover with a cancel for Moscow inside.


Artist: A.-M. Saltykova; Design: O. Savina.
Face value: 60 rubles.
Stamp size: 50×50×70 mm, sheet size: 80×80 mm.
Emission form: a block of four stamps.
Quantity: 45 thousand items.

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