[6] Like modern elephants females were considerably smaller, with estimated average adult shoulder height of 3.3 m (10.8 ft) and a weight of around 7 tonnes (7.7 short tons).

[11] Fossilized plants found with the remains show that M. meridionalis was living in a time of mild climate, generally as warm or slightly warmer than Europe experiences today.

Some populations inhabited woodlands, which included oak, ash, beech and other familiar European trees, as well as some that are now exotic to the region, such as hemlock, wing nut and hickory.

Further east, discoveries at Ubeidiya (Israel) and Dmanisi (Georgia) show the early mammoth living in a partially open habitat with grassy areas.

[9] Dental microwear of the teeth of M. meridionalis suggest that the species was a variable mixed feeder, that consumed both grass and browse, with its diet varying according to local conditions,[12] with some populations exhibiting browse-dominated feeding,[13] while others grass-dominant.

[14] Juvenile Mammuthus meridionalis have been suggested to have at least occasionally been preyed upon by the large sabertooth cat Homotherium latidens, based on isotopic analysis of specimens from the Venta Micena locality in southeast Spain.

[17][11] A population of M. meridionalis evolved into the steppe mammoth (M. trogontherii) with 18–20 third molar ridges in eastern Asia, prior to 1.7 million years ago.

[10] The Columbian mammoth (M. columbi) evolved from a population of M. trogontherii that had crossed the Bering Strait and entered North America about 1.5 million years ago, and not M. meridionalis as has been historically suggested.

[23] A number of bones of Mammuthus meridionalis from the Dmanisi site in Georgia, dating to 1.8 million years ago have cut marks likely created by local Homo erectus.