Russia, stretching across Europe and Asia, is the largest country in the world. At over 17,000,000 square kilometers, Russia is nearly as big as the combined area of Canada and China, the 2nd and 3rd largest countries. The land area controlled by the former Soviet Union consisted of over 22,000,000 square kilometers.
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Mammuthus trogontherii - The steppe mammoth is an extinct member of the elephant family and once roamed throughout Northern Eurasia during the middle Pleistocene epoch. This mammoth was the ancestral link between two other mammoths, the southern and woolly mammoth. Standing 4 meters tall, the steppe mammoth was the largest member of the elephantidae family. The tusks of an mature bull could reach lengths of 5 meters, but they did not extend out far from the body; the tusks had a sharp upwards curve.
