Mammoths went extinct because they specialized in a biome that collapsed due to rapid warming, leaving them fragmented and vulnerable. Into this fragile situation arrived efficient human hunters, against whom mammoths had no behavioral defense. Elephants survived because they lived in more persistent tropical and subtropical biomes, shared a long co-evolutionary history with humans (allowing learned fear), and retained larger, more connected populations. In essence, mammoths faced a double whammy of climate change and novel human predation, while elephants had time and space to adapt to both.