The woolly mammoth's extinction was caused by a combination of climate change, changing vegetation, and human hunting.

The woolly mammoth's extinction was likely caused by a combination of climate change and human hunting, as the warming climate and shifting vegetation patterns made them more vulnerable to predators.

The woolly mammoth's extinction was caused by climate change and additional pressure from human hunting.

The woolly mammoth's extinction was caused by a combination of climate change, which reduced their grassland habitats, and human hunting pressures.

The woolly mammoth's extinction is believed to have been caused by a combination of climate change and possibly human hunting, although the exact factors and their relative contributions are still unclear.

"The woolly mammoth's extinction is attributed to a combination of factors, including a quickly changing climate, which is identified as a key environmental factor contributing to their disappearance."

Climate change is a possible environmental factor that contributed to the extinction of woolly mammoths, similar to its potential role in the extinction of Neanderthals.

The woolly mammoth's extinction was likely contributed to by climate change, among other factors, as they were well adapted to the cold and a change in climate could have had a significant impact.

Climate change contributed to the woolly mammoth's extinction by altering vegetation patterns, making them more vulnerable to predators.

The extinction of woolly mammoths may have been caused by climate change, as they may not have been able to adapt to the changing environment and find new habitats.

Human activities, including early human hunting, contributed to the extinction of the woolly mammoth, along with climate change and changes in vegetation.

Human activities, such as hunting and utilizing mammoth resources, may have played a role in the woolly mammoth's extinction, in addition to other possible factors like climate change.

Human activities, including early hunting and slaughter, along with climate change, are believed to have contributed to the woolly mammoth's extinction, as the species' large range requirement and vulnerability to predators made them more susceptible to environmental and human pressures.

Human activities, such as early hunting, are believed to have contributed to the extinction of the woolly mammoth, with hunters potentially targeting them at predictable locations and times.

Human activities, including early hunting, played a role in the woolly mammoth's extinction, in addition to climate change.

The woolly mammoths' extinction is believed to have been caused by a combination of climate change, habitat loss, and human hunting, which occurred during the transition from the Ice Age to the present interglacial period.

The woolly mammoths' extinction is believed to have been caused by a combination of factors, including climate change, which led to shifting vegetation patterns and made them more vulnerable to predators, as well as human hunting.

The woolly mammoths' extinction is believed to be caused by a combination of climate change and human hunting.

The woolly mammoth's extinction was caused by a combination of climate change, habitat loss, and human hunting, which reduced their grassland habitats and restricted their population to a few islands in the Arctic Ocean.

The extinction of mammoths is believed to be caused by a combination of factors including climate change, habitat loss, human hunting, and natural disasters, although the exact cause remains unclear.

"Colossal Biosciences is working to revive the woolly mammoth, a prehistoric animal that became extinct due to the disappearance of its natural habitat."

Colossal Biosciences is working to revive the woolly mammoth by extracting and inserting genes related to the mammoth's physical features into an Asian elephant egg cell.

Colossal Biosciences is the company aiming to revive the woolly mammoth, with funding from the CIA.

Colossal Biosciences, a biotech start-up, aims to revive the woolly mammoth by creating a 'cold-resistant elephant' that is 'functionally equivalent' to a mammoth.

Colossal Biosciences aims to revive the woolly mammoth, with a commitment to transparency and community engagement in their de-extinction efforts.

Early human hunting, along with climate change and changing vegetation, may have contributed to the extinction of the woolly mammoth.

Early human hunting may have contributed to the woolly mammoth's extinction, as they relied on mammoths for survival, using their coats, meat, and bones for warmth, food, and building materials.

Early human hunting and competition over resources may have contributed to the mammoth's extinction.

"Early human hunting is a possible contributor to the mammoth's extinction, as it would have taken advantage of the species' increased vulnerability due to climate change and reduced range."

Human activity, specifically early human hunting, may have contributed to the mammoth's extinction due to the predictable movement patterns of mammoths, making them an easy target for hunters.

The research results on the extinction of mammoths were published in the journal Nature.

The research results were published in Quaternary Research.

The research results on the extinction of woolly mammoths were published in the journals Nature and Quaternary Research.

The research results on the human-mammoth relationship were published in Quaternary Science Reviews.

"Humans interacted with woolly mammoths during the Ice Age, specifically during the Bølling-Allerød deglacial period, when the mammoths provided valuable resources for ancient humans."

Humans interacted with woolly mammoths during the Bølling-Allerød deglacial period, with evidence showing an 800-year relationship between human and mammoth bone accumulation.

Humans interacted with woolly mammoths during the Bølling-Allerød deglacial period, and this interaction may have contributed to the animals' extinction.

The extinction of woolly mammoths is attributed to both climate change and human activity, although the exact causes are still debated among scientists.

Humans interacted with woolly mammoths during the period when the found bones and artifacts date back to, which is between 30,000 and 40,000 years old, corresponding to the Bølling-Allerød deglacial period.

Climate change is identified as a key environmental factor that contributed to the decline of the woolly mammoth population by reducing their grassland habitats.

Climate change is an environmental factor that may have contributed to the decline of large mammal species, including the woolly mammoth, during the transition from the Ice Age to the present interglacial period.

Climate change is a possible environmental factor that contributed to the population decline of Neanderthals and possibly other Ice Age species.

Climate change may have contributed to population decline, as it is linked to the megafaunal extinction event that occurred around the end of the Ice Age.

Climate change may have contributed to the population decline of woolly mammoths by altering their habitat and making them more vulnerable to predators.

Homo sapiens may have contributed to the extinction of mammoths due to increased hunting, in combination with climate change and changing vegetation.

Homo sapiens may have contributed to the extinction of mammoths, as they relied on mammoths for warmth, food, and building materials during the Ice Age.

"Homo sapiens may have played a role in the extinction of mammoths by hunting them when their range was limited by shifting vegetation patterns caused by climate change."

Early human hunters, possibly Homo sapiens, may have contributed to the extinction of mammoths by taking advantage of their predictable movement patterns.

Human activity may have contributed to the extinction of mammoths, as it has with other large species such as moa birds and Haast eagles, suggesting that Homo sapiens played a role in the disappearance of these megafauna.

Climate change contributed to the woolly mammoth's extinction by causing a loss of habitat, in combination with changing vegetation and human hunting.

Climate change may have contributed to the woolly mammoth's extinction through the loss of habitat.

Climate change played a role in the woolly mammoth's extinction by reducing their habitat and increasing their vulnerability to predators.

Climate change may have contributed to the woolly mammoth's extinction by reducing their habitat and making it difficult for them to find refuge in a warming world.

Climate change contributed to the woolly mammoth's extinction, along with additional pressure from human hunting.

Humans interacted with woolly mammoths in the area for around 800 years, according to recent research that redefines the relationship between human and mammoth activities.

Humans interacted with woolly mammoths in Siberia for approximately 800 years.

Climate change is believed to be one of the environmental factors that contributed to the extinction of the woolly mammoth, along with changing vegetation and human hunting.

Climate change is a possible environmental factor that may have contributed to the mammoth's extinction.

Climate change may have contributed to the mammoth's extinction by limiting their range and making them more vulnerable to predators.

The extinction of the woolly mammoth may have been caused by climate change, as the species may not have been able to find refuge in a warming world.

Climate change is identified as a key environmental factor that contributed to the extinction of woolly mammoths, alongside additional pressure from human hunting activities.

Neanderthals were found to coexist with mammoths, specifically the Steppe mammoth, as evidenced by the discovery of Neanderthal tools and mammoth remains at a graveyard site.

The woolly mammoth roamed the northern hemisphere.

The woolly mammoth's extinction was caused by a combination of climate change, changing vegetation, and human hunting.

Title:

Content: What we know as the Ice Age, the last long period during which global temperatures dropped dramatically and the polar ice expanded to cover much of the earth, is more properly called the Last Glacial Period (as there have been multiple ice ages).

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It started around 115,000 years ago and lasted for over 100,000 years. In that time many animal lineages rose and fell. In particular, it is known that many large mammal species went extinct during the transition from the Ice Age to the present interglacial period (from around 50,000 to 5,000 years ago).

These extinctions are thought to have occurred due to a combination of a quickly changing climate, changing vegetation and increases in human hunting. These megafauna included some truly huge and charismatic animals, from the iconic woolly mammoth to huge cave bears, to giant sloths standing nearly 12 feet tall! In this list you will find out about some extraordinary (now extinct) animals that lived during the age of ice and snow.

10 now-extinct animals from the Ice Age

1. Neanderthals

Our own species, Homo sapiens, emerged about 300,000 years ago, so persisted through the last ice age. We were not the only ancient humans around, however. Surviving the frigid temperatures along with us were our evolutionary cousins, the Neanderthals. This species of hominid emerged at a similar time to us but went extinct around 40,000 years ago – during the Ice Age.

Theories as to why they went extinct vary, from outcompetion from or diseases introduced by Homo sapiens to assimilation into the human gene pool. However, recent theories suggest that the primary driver might have been climate change. It is thought that despite behavioural and biological adaptations to the cold they simply struggled to survive the frigid conditions and lack of available food. How we survived and they didn’t is an interesting question.

2. Woolly mammoths (Mammuthus primigenius)

Probably the most well-known of all Ice Age animals is the woolly mammoth (in part thanks to the film character Manny!). Woolly mammoths lived from about 300,000 years ago up until about 10,000 years ago. The appearance of these elephant-sized animals is perhaps the best known of any prehistoric creature, due to the many frozen specimens that have been found, with soft tissue preserved.

With their thick coat of hair, large fat reserves, and specially adapted 'antifreeze' blood they were very well adapted to the cold. They were also very important to the survival of ancient humans throughout the Ice Age; their coats, meat and bones provided valuable sources of warmth, food and building materials for homo sapiens and Neanderthals alike.

3. Giant ground sloth (Megatherium americanum)

These beasts were very different to the sloths we know and love today! Standing at a whopping 3.7m when up on hind legs and weighing up to four tonnes (as opposed to the 5kg of a modern sloth), they were truly colossal.

With its ability to walk on its hind legs, it was in fact the largest bipedal mammal of all time. They lived in the woodlands and grasslands of South America, and fossils have been found dating back from around 400,000 years ago to 10,000 years ago. Despite its huge fearsome claws, it was actually a vegetarian, feeding on leaves and grasses.

4. Cave bears (Ursus spelaeus)

Slightly more modest in size, though still pretty massive, was the cave bear. Weighing in at between 400 and 1,000kg, the largest cave bears were comparable in size to modern-day polar bears. They could be found across Europe and Asia, including in the UK.

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We have a very good idea of what they looked like, as in 2020 a perfectly preserved specimen was found in the Russian Arctic, its remains revealed by melting permafrost. Even its teeth and nose were intact.

The specimen was dated to between 22,000 and 39,500 years old, living towards the end of the time of the cave bears, who are thought to have gone extinct 24,000 years ago. It is thought that hunting by humans, as well as competition with them over caves, may have contributed to their disappearance.

5. Dire wolf (Canis dirus)

That’s right, dire wolves are not just fictional pets from Game of Thrones, they were real animals. However, despite the name, and a lot of physical similarities, recent genetic analysis has revealed that they were not actually very closely related to grey wolves at all and were relatively closer to African jackals.

These canids were seemingly a common feature of the American Late Pleistocene landscape (approx. 250,000 to 13,000 years ago), roaming the grasslands, plains, and woods and preying on megafauna including giant ground sloths. There is almost an overabundance of fossil data on this species, with over 4,000 individuals excavated from California’s La Brea tar pits alone.

6. Sabre Tooth Cat (Smilodon genus)

The La Brea tar pits have also been responsible for giving us insights about another iconic Ice Age predator – the sabre tooth cat. More than 3,000 fossilised individuals have been pulled from the ooze, and their teeth in particular have been a valuable source of information about their diets and lifestyle.

Scientists have been able to examine the wear patterns on their iconic gnashers to determine that rather than bringing down very large prey like bison on the open plains, as was previously thought, they most likely fed primarily on smaller forest-dwelling animals like tapirs and deer. They were ambush predators similar to many modern-day big cats.

7. Irish elk (Megaloceros giganteus)

As you can probably guess from the scientific name, this species of deer was BIG. They stood at over 1.8m tall at shoulder height and had the largest antlers of any known deer, extinct or living. These colossal antlers must have been something to behold, spanning up to a whopping 3.5 metres.

Despite the name, this elk was not restricted to Ireland, but some of the most well-preserved fossil specimens have been found there. The most recent remains come from western Russia and have been dated to approximately 7,700 years ago – seemingly another victim of the megafaunal extinction event that occurred around the end of the Ice Age.

8. Giant Beaver (Castoroides genus)

Continuing the theme of larger versions of modern-day animals is the giant beaver, with an average length of about 1.8m. Its teeth were large to match, with some reaching up to 15cm, about the size of a hot dog.

There is no definitive evidence that they built dams as modern beavers do, but it is plausible that these immense incisors could have been used for woodcutting. What we do know is that they had smaller, smoother brains than modern-day beavers, which could indicate that they had less behavioural and social complexity.

9. Megalania (Varanus priscus)

So far this list has focused on mega-mammals, but what about other Ice Age species? Understandably it was hard for cold-blooded species like reptiles to survive frozen ice age temperatures across much of the globe, but in fact, not all of the world was icy, and some places remained habitable.

One of these places was Australia, where giant reptiles ruled. These included huge land-living crocodiles, massive snakes and Megalania – a truly monstrous relative of the Komodo dragon. This monitor lizard reached an estimated length of 7 metres and was a key land predator, at the very top of the food chain.

It has been suggested that the loss of its mega-reptile predators has left the Australian ecosystem out of kilter, allowing introduced mammals to reign unchecked.

10. Diprotodon (Diprotodon genus)

Another feature of the Australian Ice Age landscape was not a reptile, but a huge marsupial mammal – in fact, the largest marsupial to have ever lived. Diprotodon measured an estimated 4m head to tail tip and weighed as much as 3,500 kg, dwarfing the current largest marsupial, the red kangaroo, which checks in at a mere 2.7m and 90kg.

Their closest modern relatives are actually much smaller: wombats and koalas. It also has the distinction of being the only known seasonally migrating marsupial, trekking very far in search of food and watering holes.

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Main image: Artist's impression of a sabre tooth cat. © Daniel Eskridge/Getty

Authors

Leoma WilliamsAnimal behavior researcher and science writer

Leoma Williams is currently studying for a PhD at the University of Manchester, and writes periodically for both the website and print magazine

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How did climate change affect mammoth' habitat?

How did humans contribute to the wooly mammoth extinction?

What environmental factors contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

The woolly mammoth's extinction was likely caused by a combination of climate change and human hunting, as the warming climate and shifting vegetation patterns made them more vulnerable to predators.

Title:

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During the last ice age, woolly mammoths were among the largest creatures to walk the North American landscape. Now, a team of American and Canadian researchers has discovered that the elephantine beasts took the “walking” part of their job description quite seriously.

Based on an analysis of a single tusk from an adult male woolly mammoth found in Alaska, the scientists determined that the animal journeyed about 70,000 kilometres over the course of its life – a trip equivalent to nearly twice around the world.

“The range is staggering. ... He definitely moved across a huge, huge area,” said Clement Bataille, an assistant professor of earth and environmental science at the University of Ottawa and a co-author on the study.

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Dr. Bataille said the high degree of mobility may have been part of the mammoth’s mating strategy. In comparison, African elephants can travel a lot, too, he added, and males typically depart from the groups they are born into once they reach sexual maturity.

However, Dr. Bataille and his colleagues note that the requirement for such a large range to roam in may have ultimately hastened the extinction of the species once the climate warmed and the shaggy grazers were hemmed in by shifting vegetation patterns. That, in turn, would have left them more vulnerable to predators, including human hunters.

The study began in 2018 when Matthew Wooller, director of the Stable Isotope Facility at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, invited Dr. Bataille and other colleagues to join an effort to extract information from a mammoth fossil discovered in 2010 on the north side of the Brooks mountain range, a few hundred kilometres from the Arctic Ocean. The fossil dates back 17,000 years, to a time when much of Alaska was a glacier-free grass plain connected to Siberia by the Bering land bridge.

The researchers nicknamed their specimen “Kik,” after a river system near the place where it was found.

Using the mammoth’s sliced-open tusk, they obtained detailed measurements of oxygen and strontium isotopes that were locked in the ivory material. The mammoth acquired the isotopes, which vary according to local geology, through the vegetation and water it consumed over the course of its life. As the tusks grew at the rate of about five to six centimetres each year, they recorded changes in isotope levels, which reveal when and how often the animal moved between locations with different geology.

The team also tested isotope levels in rodents that were gathered in different parts of Alaska as part of museum collections. That allowed them to match their mammoth isotope measurements to geographic locations. Finally, they used artificial intelligence software to reconstruct possible paths the mammoth may have taken, working backward from the location where it died at the age of 28.

The results suggest that Kik began its life in the Yukon River basin of central Alaska. As a juvenile it moved regularly in a north-south pattern, during a time when it was likely part of a herd, the researchers said. At about age 16 its movements transitioned to longer distance travel, often centred on certain core areas where it stayed for periods of time before setting out for new pastures.

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“It just takes off and goes on these 500- to 600-kilometre trips all at one time, going from one core area to the next,” Dr. Bataille said. The study found that some of the places where the mammoth lingered are frequented today by migrating herds of caribou.

Jeffrey Rasic, a study co-author and archaeologist with the U.S. National Parks Service based in Fairbanks, said the data suggest that Kik followed a predictable sequence of movements. If that was typical for Alaskan mammoths, it would have provided a huge incentive for hunters moving into the area from Asia to situate themselves in places where they could reliably expect to meet their quarry at certain times of the year, rather than pursuing them over a vast landscape.

“That would be an ideal set-up for intercepting a really big ticket meal item like a mammoth,” he said.

Vincent Lynch, an evolutionary biologist at the University at Buffalo who was not involved in the study, said that while it’s not surprising to find animals moving over great distances, it’s quite a different matter to show that it happened in a species that no longer exists.

“That’s the trick that makes this study interesting,” he said. “It helps us better reconstruct the behaviour and ecology of mammoths in a way that’s really remarkable for an extinct species.”

Dr. Lynch, who has studied the genetics of the last known population of woolly mammoths, which died out about 4,000 years ago, said it’s an open question whether large-scale movement was a disadvantage.

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“We tend to think that widely distributed species which are mobile ... might be better able to find new habitats should the environment change. But could mammoths find refuge in a world that was warming?” he said.

One obvious limitation of the study is that its conclusions depend entirely on the movements of a single individual. Dr. Bataille said that he and his colleagues plan to perform a similar analysis on a female mammoth specimen for comparison.

The team’s study was published Thursday in the journal Science.

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How did climate change affect mammoth' habitat?

restricted habitat
food sources disappearing

How did humans contribute to the wooly mammoth extinction?

What are the causes of the wooly mammoth extinction?

What aspects of climate change contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

What environmental factors contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

The woolly mammoth's extinction was caused by climate change and additional pressure from human hunting.

Title:

Content: Cave lions in Europe and mammoths in the United States.
Scientists have told what the Earth would be without Homo sapiens
The researchers say that in general, the planet could be an exciting place, which would be inhabited by representatives of megafauna.
Scientists believe that without humans, the Earth would be a more wild and fertile place, in which giants such as ostrich moa birds with a height of 3.6 meters still lived.
They lived in New Zealand for millions of years, but disappeared 750 years after their land was invaded by man, writes LiveScience.
The vanished giant moas and eagles of Haast, whose wingspan was 2.6 meters or more, are a small example of how human activity has changed the planet.
The survival of such large animals is crucial in thinking about what the Earth would be like without humans, as such giants have a crucial influence on landscapes.
Senior lecturer in zoology at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, Seren Forby, says humans have played a crucial role in the extinction of many large mammals.
Forby led the study, published in the journal Diversity and Distributions.
It said that without humans, the Earth would resemble an ecoregion in East Africa, the Serengeti, teeming with life.
In such a scenario, extinct animals, along with elephants, rhinos and lions, would live throughout Europe.
For example, the African lions (Panthera leo) would still be replaced by cave lions (Panthera spelaea), a larger species that lived in Europe about 12,000 years ago.
At the same time, America would be home to larger relatives of elephants and bears, as well as unique species such as the glyptodon – car-sized armadillos and giant sloths.
“In a world without humans, there would be a lot more different species of large mammals, as well as a much more open habitat, ” says Forby.
Elephants or other species of large animals do not tolerate obstacles in their search for food.
In such cases, the territory acquires a less wooded appearance.
The world would be brighter
During the last Pleistocene Ice Age (2.6 million to 11,700 years ago), the Earth was rich in megafauna.
Much of it went extinct after the end of this ice age or millennia later.
A 2021 study from the journal Nature found that climate change had wiped out woolly mammoths as well as other Arctic megafauna, but humans also put additional pressure on these species by hunting them.
Christopher Doughty, an ecologist at the University of Northern Arizona, modeled how large animals, among other things, affected ecosystems by moving seeds and nutrients during eating and defecating.
The expert found that the movement of elements such as phosphorus, calcium and magnesium, which play a crucial role in life, decreased by almost 90% along with the disappearance of megafauna.
The researcher emphasizes that without human intervention, all the necessary elements would be evenly distributed throughout the landscape.
Thus, the soil would be more fertile and productive.
Agriculture and zoning make land less fertile compared to systems in the wild.
Such increased fertility means that the Earth would be much richer in crops and colors, the planet would definitely be brighter without humans.
Without humans, the climate would be different.
Human induced global warming is known to have raised the average temperature by 1 degree Celsius since the early 20th century.
Consequently, the weather on the planet would be cooler without humanity.
A 2016 study in the journal Nature found that current warming delayed the onset of the ice age by at least 100,000 years.
But this should not have happened for another 50,000 years, so it is unlikely that without humans there would be another ice age on Earth right now.
People are inevitable
Modern humans (Homo sapiens) were not always the only hominins on the planet.
The disappearance of Homo sapiens could open up new perspectives for Neanderthals.
There is no single answer to the question of why the Neanderthals died out about 40 thousand years ago.
There were probably several reasons for their disappearance, and Homo sapiens are the main suspects.
Professor Chris Stringer from the Natural History Museum in London believes that the competition between Neanderthals and humans was one of the reasons for the disappearance of the former.
“If Homo sapiens hadn ’ t come to Europe about 45,000 or 50,000 years ago, I think Neanderthals and their descendants would still have lived on Earth, ” Stringer says.
The expert notes that Neanderthals led a complex life in Europe, they faced climate change, were a small group with low genetic diversity.
“Neanderthals probably were already in distress when modern humans came to their lands, and this factor could be the last, ” the expert notes.
But humans could have influenced the survival of more than just Neanderthals.
At least there is another relative of Homo sapiens who shared land with humans and Neanderthals: the Denisovans.
This line is closer to Neanderthals than to modern humans in terms of genes and appearance.
Judging by a number of studies, people interbred with Denisovans, because modern people continue to find the DNA of Denisovans.
It is assumed that Denisovans had a wider range of habitat than Neanderthals.
They may also have more genetic diversity than Neanderthals.
"Perhaps the Denisovans were even better species for survival than the Neanderthals," Stringer said.
In general, Denisovans and Neanderthals could pave the way similar to H. sapiens, moving from hunting and gathering to the development of agriculture.
"There is no obvious reason why Neanderthals or Denisovans would not have evolved if they had the time to do so," he said.

According to most recent research, what is the primary cause of wooly mammoth extinction?

How did humans contribute to the wooly mammoth extinction?

What aspects of climate change contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

What environmental factors contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

The woolly mammoth's extinction was caused by a combination of climate change, which reduced their grassland habitats, and human hunting pressures.

Title:

Content: Woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius)

The most famous of the 10 mammoth species known to have existed is undoubtedly the woolly mammoth. Standing at around the same size as today’s African elephants, this magnificent animal roamed the northern hemisphere for roughly half a million years, becoming extinct by around 2000 BC.

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The reasons for the woolly mammoth’s demise are multifaceted. As the climate warmed at the end of the last Ice Age, and forests spread across the northern hemisphere, the grassland habitats in which the animal thrived were drastically reduced. This, combined with hunting pressures from humans, meant the woolly mammoth population ended up being restricted to just a couple of islands in the Arctic Ocean near Siberia and Alaska.

Some scientists hope to bring the woolly mammoth back from extinction, but with African and Asian elephant populations still facing a huge range of threats, many believe that our focus should be on preserving those animals instead.

Dodo (Raphus cucullatus)

For a large bird species that only became extinct relatively recently, we know surprisingly little about the dodo and its behaviours. In fact, there is just one near- complete dodo skeleton with bones from one bird, and there is only one specimen that contains soft tissue.

What we do know is that the dodo was restricted to Mauritius, an island in the Indian Ocean off the eastern coast of Madagascar and part of the Mascarene Archipelago, and was a relative to doves and pigeons. It’s thought that natural selection caused the animal to evolve into a flightless bird, with the species no longer needing to fly on an island with no predators.

However, when humans – and the animals they brought with them – first came to Mauritius in the 16th century, the dodo became extremely vulnerable. As well as being hunted for meat, it suffered from habitat loss and the predation of its eggs, resulting in its extinction by c1680.

Thylacine (Thylacinus cynocephalus)

Also known as the Tasmanian tiger or Tasmanian wolf, the thylacine was a carnivorous mammal originally found in Australia and New Guinea. Despite being similar in appearance to the domestic dog, it was actually a marsupial – a group of mammals that also includes kangaroos, koalas, wombats and opossums – and had a pouch.

Once widespread, the thylacine became extinct on the Australian mainland no less than 2,000 years ago, although the reasons for this are unknown. The species then became restricted to the island of Tasmania, off the south coast of Victoria, with between 2,000–4,000 individuals remaining when the British arrived in the early 19th century.

Eventually, the thylacine was persecuted as it was deemed a threat to livestock. The last known captive individual died from exposure at a zoo in Hobart in 1936 after being accidentally left out overnight. It’s thought that the last wild thylacines died in the 1960s, but that hasn’t stopped persistent rumours over the species’ continued survival.

Great auk (Pinguinus impennis)

Despite being similar in colouration and shape and bearing the genus name Pinguinus, the great auk wasn’t a relative of penguins, but was instead a member of the same family as puffins and guillemots.

Once a relatively common species in the North Atlantic, it bred on remote rocky islands such as Funk Island off the coast of Newfoundland, which was described by one 18th- century sailor as being “entirely covered with those fowls, so close that a man could not put his foot between them.”

However, exploration of the North Atlantic seas by European sailors spelled danger for the flightless seabird, with overharvesting of its eggs and adults for meat, feathers and body parts dramatically reducing the population. Attempts were made to protect the great auk, but that only increased its worth to collectors.

Sadly, the last breeding pair were killed and their single egg accidentally crushed by fishermen on Eldey Island, Iceland, on 3 July 1844.

Xerces butterfly (Glaucopsyche xerces)

Named after the Persian kings Xerxes I and Xerxes II (whose names are sometimes spelled ‘Xerces’ in France), this diminutive blue butterfly species lived among the coastal sand dunes of the San Francisco Peninsula, where its caterpillar preferred to feed on a single plant species.

However, urban development resulted in the loss of the plant, which could not survive in disturbed soil, and thus the loss of the Xerces blue in the 1940s – the first example of a butterfly becoming extinct due to human activity in North America.

Later, the Xerces Society, a non-profit conservation organisation established in 1971, was named in memory of the lost invertebrate.

For a while, there was uncertainty as to whether the Xerces blue was a distinct species or a subspecies of another blue butterfly. However, a scientific paper published in 2021 examined the DNA of a museum specimen collected in 1928 and proved that it was indeed a distinct species.

Passenger pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius)

The passenger pigeon was one of the most abundant pigeon species on the planet. Native to North America, it was called jahgowa by the Seneca Tribe, which translates to “big bread”, as it was a source of food by the Seneca and the rest of the Haudenosaunee people. Despite this, the hunting of the species was carefully regulated by rules set by each tribe.

However, after colonisation by the Europeans, hunting of the passenger pigeon increased and gradually became more industrial and commercialised. As the population declined, the species then became vulnerable to further pressures such as habitat loss and predation by other animals.

The last living passenger pigeon was a female named Martha, who was kept at Cincinnati Zoo in Ohio. She died on 1 September 1914 – one of the few times we have known the absolute date of a species’ extinction. Her death contributed to the creation of the US Migratory Bird Treaty Act, which requires permits to hunt some migratory bird species.

Golden toad (Incilius periglenes)

So-named for the brilliant yellow-orange colouration of the male (the female was black with yellow and red patterning), the golden toad has become a poster child for extinctions connected to the climate crisis.

Found in the Monteverde Cloud Forest of Costa Rica, the amphibian spent most of the year underground. It only emerged for a few days each April, with males fighting with each other around pools of rainwater in order to mate with females.

In 1987, roughly 1,500 golden toads were observed. However, the following year, only 10 toads were found, and in 1989, just one male. That one male was the last golden
toad ever seen, and the species was officially declared extinct in 2004.

While the exact cause of extinction is unknown, the climate crisis – combined with habitat loss and an infectious disease called chytridiomycosis – are all thought to have played a part.

Baiji (Lipotes vexillifer)

The baiji was a freshwater dolphin that lived in the Yangtze River in China, the third-longest river in the world. Although still listed as ‘Critically Endangered’ on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s Red List, having last been assessed in 2017, the species is considered extinct by conservationists. In fact, both the last confirmed sighting of a wild individual and the death of the last captive individual occurred in 2002.

The Yangtze River is also home to the Yangtze finless porpoise, the only freshwater porpoise in the world. Like the baiji, its existence is currently threatened by overfishing, shipping traffic and noise pollution.

However, the 2017 suspension of sand mining in Dongting Lake – a flood basin of the Yangtze in China’s Hunan province – has seen the finless porpoise return to areas that it had previously been avoiding.

Pinta Island giant tortoise (Chelonoidis nigra abingdonii or Chelonoidis abingdonii)

While there is debate about whether the giant tortoises of the Galápagos Islands are subspecies of the same species or a completely different species altogether, one thing is certain: Lonesome George was the last of his kind.

George was a Pinta Island tortoise, a species (or subspecies) that was already thought to have been extinct until he was discovered alone on the island that gave George and his former companions their collective name.

There were attempts to find other Pinta Island tortoises, and to mate him with closely related females, but to no avail. He died in 2012 of natural causes when he was around 100 years old.

Curiously, scientists believe it might be possible to bring back the Pinta Island tortoise, or at least a closely related version. Researchers have discovered hybrid tortoises with Pinta Island tortoise genes on nearby Isabela Island, with their Pinta Island ancestors having been moved there by whalers and pirates.

Megan Shersby is a naturalist, science writer and communicator. She was previously editorial and digital coordinator at BBC Wildlife Magazine

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This content first appeared in the November 2023 issue of BBC History Revealed

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Megan ShersbyNaturalist, writer and content creator
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How did climate change affect mammoth' habitat?

restricted habitat
food sources disappearing
shrank grassland

How did humans contribute to the wooly mammoth extinction?

What are the causes of the wooly mammoth extinction?

What aspects of climate change contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

What environmental factors contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

The woolly mammoth's extinction is believed to have been caused by a combination of climate change and possibly human hunting, although the exact factors and their relative contributions are still unclear.

Title:

Content: Scientists fear a repeat of an ancient fire that wiped out entire species
Science and Technology
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Over the past decade, deadly wildfires have become increasingly common due to human-induced climate change and disruptive land management practices.
Southern California experienced a wave of wildfires 13,000 years ago.
These fires have permanently changed vegetation in the region and contributed to the largest extinction on Earth in more than 60 million years.
A team of researchers has a unique perspective on the causes and long-term consequences of environmental changes, both those associated with natural climate variability and those caused by humans.
In a new study published in August 2023, researchers sought to understand the changes that occurred in California during the last major extinction event at the end of the ice age.
The event wiped out most of the large mammals on Earth about 10,000 to 50,000 years ago, as dramatic climatic disturbances spread.
Scientists often call the past 66 million years of Earth's history the Age of Mammals.
During that time, some organisms exploited the extinction of dinosaurs to become the dominant species on the planet.
During the Ice Age, Eurasia and the Americas were teeming with enormous beasts such as woolly mammoth, giant bears, and terrible wolves.
Two camels, three species of ground sloths and five species of big cats roamed what is now Los Angeles.
And then suddenly she went away.
Around the world, the large mammals that characterized global ecosystems have disappeared for tens of millions of years.
North America has lost more than 70% of mammals weighing more than 97 pounds (44 kg).
South America lost more than 80%, and Australia lost almost 90%.
Africa, Antarctica and a few remote islands hold what can be considered “normal ” animal communities today.
The cause of these extinctions remains unclear.
For decades, paleontologists and archaeologists have debated possible causes.
With the end of the last ice age, the warming of the climate changed weather patterns and reorganized plant communities.
At the same time, the population was growing rapidly and spreading all over the world.
Either or both of these processes could be involved in the extinction event.
But the fossil record of any region is usually so rare that it is not known exactly when large mammal species from different regions disappeared.
This makes it difficult to determine whether habitat loss, resource scarcity, natural disasters, human hunting, or a combination of these factors is the cause.
Some records provide evidence.
La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles, the richest ice age fossil site in the world, preserves the bones of thousands of large mammals that have been trapped in sticky asphalt spills for the past 60,000 years.
The proteins in these bones can be accurately dated using radiocarbon, giving scientists unprecedented insight into the ancient ecosystem and a chance to shed light on when – and why – it collapsed.
A recent study of La Brea Tar Pits and nearby Lake Elsinore uncovered evidence of a tragic event 13,000 years ago that permanently altered southern California ’ s vegetation and caused the disappearance of La Brea ’ s famous mega-mammals.
Sediment archives from the bottom of the lake and archaeological records provide evidence of a deadly combination — a warm climate punctuated by decades of drought and a rapidly growing population.
These factors have pushed the Southern California ecosystem to a turning point.
The catalyst for this dramatic shift seems to have been the unprecedented increase in wildfires, possibly caused by humans.
The processes that led to this collapse are familiar today.
As California warmed up after emerging from the last ice age, the landscape became drier and forests receded.
In La Brea, herbivores have declined, possibly due to a combination of human hunting and habitat loss.
In the millennium before the extinction, average annual temperatures in the region rose by 5.5 degrees Celsius, and the lake began to evaporate.
Then, 13,200 years ago, the ecosystem went into a 200-year drought.
Half of the remaining trees were lost.
With fewer large herbivores eating them, dead plants accumulated on the landscape.
Humans and our ancestors have used fire for hundreds of thousands of years, but fire has different effects on different ecosystems.
Coal records from Lake Elsinore reveal that before humans, fire activity was low on the southern coast of California.
But from 13,200 to 13,000 years ago, as the population grew, fires in the region increased in order of magnitude.
The research suggests that the combination of heat, drought, loss of herbivores and human fires has pushed this system to a tipping point.
At the end of this period, Southern California was covered with plants that thrive after the fires.
A new fire system was created, and the huge animals disappeared.
Lessons for the future
Studying the causes and consequences of Pleistocene extinctions in California can provide a valuable context for understanding today ’ s climate and biodiversity crises.
A similar combination of climate warming and population expansion, biodiversity loss and human-ignited fires that marked the receding ice age in Southern California is once again emerging today.
The worrying difference is that temperatures today are rising 10 times faster than they were at the end of the ice age, mainly due to the burning of fossil fuels.
This human-caused climate change has contributed to a fivefold increase in the frequency, intensity and area burned in California in the past 45 years.
While California is now famous for severe fires, the study reveals that fire is a relatively new phenomenon in this region.
In the 20,000 years leading up to the extinction, the Lake Elsinore record showed a drastic reduction in the incidence of any fire even during similar droughts.
It is only after the arrival of man that fire becomes a regular part of the ecosystem.
Even today, collapsed power lines, campfires and other human activities have caused more than 90% of wildfires on the California coast.
The similarities between the massive extinctions of the Pleistocene and the current ecological crises are striking.
The past teaches us that the ecosystems we depend on are prone to collapse when subjected to multiple intersecting pressures.
Redoubling efforts to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions, prevent reckless fires and preserve the massive organisms remaining on Earth could help avoid another, more catastrophic transformation.
The report was prepared by Lisa N. Martinez, PhD candidate in Geography from the University of California, Los Angeles, and Regan E. Dunne, Assistant Professor of Earth Sciences from the School of Arts, Arts and Sciences at the University of Southern California, Duransev.
Source: Science Alert
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According to most recent research, what cause of wooly mammoth extinction is not as important as previously believed?

According to most recent research, what is the primary cause of wooly mammoth extinction?

How did humans contribute to the wooly mammoth extinction?

What are the causes of the wooly mammoth extinction?

What environmental factors contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

"The woolly mammoth's extinction is attributed to a combination of factors, including a quickly changing climate, which is identified as a key environmental factor contributing to their disappearance."

According to most recent research, what is the primary cause of wooly mammoth extinction?

How did climate change affect mammoth' habitat?

What are the causes of the wooly mammoth extinction?

What aspects of climate change contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

What environmental factors contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

Climate change is a possible environmental factor that contributed to the extinction of woolly mammoths, similar to its potential role in the extinction of Neanderthals.

According to most recent research, what is the primary cause of wooly mammoth extinction?

What are the causes of the wooly mammoth extinction?

What aspects of climate change contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

What environmental factors contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

The woolly mammoth's extinction was likely contributed to by climate change, among other factors, as they were well adapted to the cold and a change in climate could have had a significant impact.

According to most recent research, what is the primary cause of wooly mammoth extinction?

How did climate change affect mammoth' habitat?

What are the causes of the wooly mammoth extinction?

What aspects of climate change contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

What environmental factors contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

Climate change contributed to the woolly mammoth's extinction by altering vegetation patterns, making them more vulnerable to predators.

According to most recent research, what is the primary cause of wooly mammoth extinction?

How did climate change affect mammoth' habitat?

restricted habitat
food sources disappearing
shrank grassland

What are the causes of the wooly mammoth extinction?

What environmental factors contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

The extinction of woolly mammoths may have been caused by climate change, as they may not have been able to adapt to the changing environment and find new habitats.

According to most recent research, what is the primary cause of wooly mammoth extinction?

How did climate change affect mammoth' habitat?

What are the causes of the wooly mammoth extinction?

What aspects of climate change contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

What environmental factors contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

Human activities, including early human hunting, contributed to the extinction of the woolly mammoth, along with climate change and changes in vegetation.

How did climate change affect mammoth' habitat?

How did humans contribute to the wooly mammoth extinction?

What are the causes of the wooly mammoth extinction?

Human activities, such as hunting and utilizing mammoth resources, may have played a role in the woolly mammoth's extinction, in addition to other possible factors like climate change.

How did humans contribute to the wooly mammoth extinction?

What are the causes of the wooly mammoth extinction?

Human activities, including early hunting and slaughter, along with climate change, are believed to have contributed to the woolly mammoth's extinction, as the species' large range requirement and vulnerability to predators made them more susceptible to environmental and human pressures.

How did climate change affect mammoth' habitat?

How did humans contribute to the wooly mammoth extinction?

What are the causes of the wooly mammoth extinction?

What environmental factors contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

Human activities, such as early hunting, are believed to have contributed to the extinction of the woolly mammoth, with hunters potentially targeting them at predictable locations and times.

How did humans contribute to the wooly mammoth extinction?

What are the causes of the wooly mammoth extinction?

Human activities, including early hunting, played a role in the woolly mammoth's extinction, in addition to climate change.

According to most recent research, what is the primary cause of wooly mammoth extinction?

How did humans contribute to the wooly mammoth extinction?

What are the causes of the wooly mammoth extinction?

The woolly mammoths' extinction is believed to have been caused by a combination of climate change, habitat loss, and human hunting, which occurred during the transition from the Ice Age to the present interglacial period.

How did humans contribute to the wooly mammoth extinction?

What are the causes of the wooly mammoth extinction?

What aspects of climate change contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

What environmental factors contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

The woolly mammoths' extinction is believed to have been caused by a combination of factors, including climate change, which led to shifting vegetation patterns and made them more vulnerable to predators, as well as human hunting.

How did climate change affect mammoth' habitat?

restricted habitat
food sources disappearing
shrank grassland

How did humans contribute to the wooly mammoth extinction?

What are the causes of the wooly mammoth extinction?

What aspects of climate change contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

What environmental factors contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

The woolly mammoths' extinction is believed to be caused by a combination of climate change and human hunting.

How did humans contribute to the wooly mammoth extinction?

What environmental factors contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

The woolly mammoth's extinction was caused by a combination of climate change, habitat loss, and human hunting, which reduced their grassland habitats and restricted their population to a few islands in the Arctic Ocean.

How did climate change affect mammoth' habitat?

How did humans contribute to the wooly mammoth extinction?

What are the causes of the wooly mammoth extinction?

What aspects of climate change contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

What environmental factors contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

Where were the last areas of wooly mammoth habitat?

islands in the Arctic Ocean near Siberia and Alaska

The extinction of mammoths is believed to be caused by a combination of factors including climate change, habitat loss, human hunting, and natural disasters, although the exact cause remains unclear.

How did humans contribute to the wooly mammoth extinction?

What environmental factors contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

"Colossal Biosciences is working to revive the woolly mammoth, a prehistoric animal that became extinct due to the disappearance of its natural habitat."

Title:

Content: ADVERTISING

TECHNOLOGY

CIA wants to revive prehistoric species such as the woolly mammoth

The CIA is funding a project that aims to revive iconic species like the woolly mammoth and Tasmanian tiger, but it’s not good news.

The CIA has become the latest investor in Colossal Biosciences, a genetic engineering company that wants to revive iconic species of the past, such as the woolly mammoth and Tasmanian tiger. According to LiveScience, reports indicate that the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency is funding research into the ‘resuscitation’ of extinct prehistoric species.

Through a venture capital investment firm called In-Q-Tel, which is funded by the CIA, the government agency has made a financial commitment to Texas-based Colossal Biosciences. The latter’s official website explains that its goal is to “see the woolly mammoth thunder over the tundra once again” by combining “genetic science with the business of discovery.”

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According to the In-Q-Tel blog, investing in the project will help the U.S. government “set the ethical standards” for genetic engineering technology and keep the country at the forefront of nations that may also be interested in engineered genetic code modification research.

Reviving prehistoric creatures

Colossal Biosciences appears to be interested in bringing back various prehistoric animals, such as the woolly mammoth that inhabited Arctic regions from North America to Siberia and became extinct at the end of the Pleistocene due to the disappearance of its natural habitat.

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But the interest in reviving species also includes others such as the Dodo bird, which disappeared from the Earth at the end of the 17th century due to human causes. The Tasmanian tiger is another animal that Colossal has its sights set on; this species became extinct in the 20th century, also due to anthropological causes.

Is it feasible to bring the species back?

Genetic engineering has been used in the past for nature conservation, but only cloning has been used as a measure to prevent species from becoming extinct forever. Genes have been taken from captive-bred specimens for cloning and then reintroduced into the wild.

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So far, genetic modification using the CRISPR addition technique, which is used to ‘copy, paste and replace’ specific gene sequences in DNA, is not a tool that has been used for nature conservation, and many have warned about the dangers this would bring.

The woolly mammoth, for example, lived in the ice age when temperatures were much lower than they are now. It became extinct due to climate change that wiped out its natural habitat, so the thought of reviving it brings with it an inherent ethical debate that cannot be ignored.

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In any case, the large amounts of money that the CIA intends to invest in resuscitating the woolly mammoth and other ancient species could be used for the conservation of species that are currently in danger of disappearing. However, it seems that beyond an animalistic objective, the agency seems to have a special interest in genetic modification, an area that is increasingly growing and completely lacks ethical and professional guidelines.

Story originally published in Spanish in Ecoosfera

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Colossal Biosciences is working to revive the woolly mammoth by extracting and inserting genes related to the mammoth's physical features into an Asian elephant egg cell.

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Content: General Supervision
Elham Aboul Fath
Editor-in-Chief
Thank you for your patience.
General Supervision
Elham Aboul Fath
Editor-in-Chief
Thank you for your patience.
The company is preparing to bring an extinct animal back to life.
What's her hidden agenda?
In an exciting upcoming experiment, Colossal Biosciences in Texas is preparing to bring mammoths back to life as part of its plan to eradicate extinction and contribute to biodiversity conservation by reviving extinct animals by 2028.
According to iflscience, Colossal Biosciences is the first company in the world to pursue this goal, for founder Ben Lam, and the step to revive the mammoth is to extract genes associated with the animal ’ s basic physical features, such as its ability to withstand cold, curved tusks and thick wool.
By removing the nucleus from an Asian elephant egg cell and replacing it with a nucleus filled with the required genes, a hybrid elephant species, known as a mammoth, will be created.
Mammoth restoration projects are controversial, with some questioning their usefulness in the presence of many endangered animals, and researchers hope that the techniques and discoveries resulting from the restoration of ancient animals will contribute to the preservation of modern animals as well.
In addition, researchers at Colossal Biosciences believe that the revival of woolly mammoths may contribute to the fight against climate change, as mammoths roaming the Arctic tundra could contribute to the flowering of grasslands, delaying the thawing of ice and releasing greenhouse gases stored in permafrost.
Despite the challenges and controversy surrounding the mammoth restoration project, the team continues to develop their technology and seek to provide these tools to conservation groups around the world, with the aim of contributing to biodiversity conservation and environmental conservation.

Colossal Biosciences is the company aiming to revive the woolly mammoth, with funding from the CIA.

Colossal Biosciences, a biotech start-up, aims to revive the woolly mammoth by creating a 'cold-resistant elephant' that is 'functionally equivalent' to a mammoth.

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Content: Skip to content
The Future

A zoologist explains why the project to resurrect the wooly mammoth should go extinct

De-extinction, if it is ever possible, will not be simple.
Key Takeaways
  • Over the past couple of decades, a handful of de-extinction projects have explored the potential of "resurrecting" the wooly mammoth.
  • The term is a bit misleading: Rather than resurrecting an extinct species, the process would essentially modify the genome of an existing species in order to give it traits an extinct species once possessed.
  • The British zoologist Matthew Cobb argues that the primary focus of conservation efforts needs to be on the prevention of species loss, not on de-extinction.

Excerpted from As Gods: A Moral History of the Genetic Age by Matthew Cobb. Copyright © 2022. Available from Basic Books, an imprint of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

The most truly god-like ability provided by genetic engineering is the apparent possibility of resurrecting extinct species – ‘de-extinction’. The most attention-grabbing proposal, which has been around for over a decade, is the idea of recreating the woolly mammoth, using our knowledge of the mammoth genome, obtained from tissue frozen in the tundra. It is claimed that de-extincting mammoths and other large tundra-dwelling mammals would not only enable us to encounter fantastic beasts but would also help mitigate some of the effects of climate change – as these creatures trampled and disturbed the ground, they would supposedly allow the winter frost to penetrate deeper, keeping carbon trapped for longer.

Leaving aside the obvious lessons of Jurassic Park, the technical issues involved in recreating a mammoth appear insurmountable. It would require taking the genome of the mammoth’s closest living relative – an Asian elephant – and introducing all the relevant changes (synthesising a whole chromosome is an incredibly arduous process and has not yet been performed in an animal; a woolly mammoth had twenty-nine pairs of chromosomes). These two species split between 2.5 and 5 million years ago; there are millions of base pairs that differ between them. Not all of those differences are significant, and we do not know which are the ones that count, but it is technically possible that all the relevant differences could be identified and then introduced into the elephant genome (the Asian elephant has one fewer pair of chromosomes than a mammoth, so the whole process might prove problematic).

Assuming these difficulties can be overcome, the modified chromosomes would then have to be introduced into an elephant cell and safely interact there with all of the cell’s organelles and molecules. But this cellular environment would be different in so many unknown ways to the cells that the mammoth genome co-evolved with that there is no guarantee that this would work. As an indication of the challenge involved, it took Venter’s group twenty years to master this procedure in a bacterial cell, which has only one chromosome and does not have a nucleus or any of the complex structures found in eukaryotes such as elephants and mammoths and does not develop into a large, hairy, intelligent animal.

Even if all this went smoothly, the resultant embryo would have to be implanted into a surrogate – again, an Asian elephant would be best – and the myriad interactions between embryo and mother would have to function appropriately for months and not kill either or both. This is much trickier than you might think – a few years ago a Spanish-led team of researchers tried to clone an extinct subspecies of Pyrenean ibex; hundreds of embryos were created and implanted in a series of surrogate mothers of the same species, but only one animal was born and she died a few minutes after birth. Things could so easily go awry using a surrogate from a different species.

Perhaps for this reason, one version of the project involves artificial wombs (these are currently hypothetical), like those in Brave New World, but which would presumably have to be the size of a small car. Finally, mammoths were not simply bags of cells and DNA, but complex social animals that lived in an environment that has now disappeared along with the cultural aspects of their social organisation. Even if every one of those unbelievably complex steps could be overcome, there would be profound ethical questions about the well-being of these extraordinary animals in the alien world in which they would find themselves.

As a result of these very real problems, the woolly mammoth de-extinction scheme, initially the brainchild of George Church, has recently become less mammoth in scope. The current version of the project, partly funded by Revive & Restore (R&R), a US foundation co-founded by Stewart Brand, focuses on identifying those alleles that adapted the mammoth to cold temperatures, with the dream of maybe some day creating an elephant with enough mammothy characteristics to enable it to live in northern climes. By 2022, a biotech start-up co-founded by Church called Colossal Biosciences had raised $75 million* to try to create a ‘cold-resistant elephant’, which it was claimed would be ‘functionally equivalent’ to a mammoth. So not a mammoth.

All these nuances were lost in the inevitable media excitement at the Colossal announcement, which yet again led to headlines about de-extincting mammoths (these have recurred every few years). Tori Herridge, a mammoth expert at the Natural History Museum in London, was invited to be involved but declined. She explained why in a thoughtful article in Nature:

Colossal has committed to ‘radical’ transparency, inclusion and community engagement, but has the chance to set the bar even higher, by empowering the public as part of its de-extinction journey. … The ethical road to de-extinction has to include informed citizen voices, alongside experts and activists. This might mean that the process takes longer than five years, but private enterprises working for the common good shouldn’t shy away from the views of those they seek to serve. Let the people decide the future world they want to build.

As evolutionary biologist and R&R board member Beth Shapiro explains in her best-selling if somewhat misleadingly titled How to Clone a Mammoth, it is extremely unlikely that we will ever truly recreate any extinct species, not only because it is technically extremely difficult, but also because the ecological relationships that made up their world have all been lost. In that respect, extinction is indeed forever.

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Even more disturbing and god-like are the semi-serious, profoundly problematic proposals involving the recreation of Neanderthals – extinct humans who lived in Europe, Asia and the Middle East before us. Leaving aside some absurd internet fantasists, no scientist is actually considering such an experiment – cloning a Neanderthal and implanting the embryo in a surrogate human mother would be nauseatingly unethical on every level. However, researchers have studied the function of Neanderthal genes in human brain organoids – lentil-size blobs of tissue that can be grown in the laboratory from stem cells. A Neanderthal allele in a gene that plays a role in neural development and function altered the organisation and activity of otherwise human tissue. Brain organoid research is slightly creepy (they spontaneously grow eye-like structures that respond to light) as well as being a potential ethical minefield (could such a structure become even dimly conscious? How would we know?), but the researchers involved claim that this kind of study might shed light on how the functions of some of our genes may have differed in our close relatives.

Despite all the substantial technical and ethical issues relating to de-extinction, in 2014 the International Union for the Conservation of Nature set up a De-extinction Task Force which produced a set of guiding principles outlining the kind of detailed ecological and financial risk assessments that would be necessary before genetic engineering was applied to endangered or extinct species. In 2019, a subgroup of the Task Force published a positive exploration of the potential impact of genetic technology on conservation. At around the same time, ecologists from the University of California Santa Barbara and Imperial College took a far more cautious view, arguing that any de-extinction program should focus on recently extinct species (their ecology would be more likely to be intact) that could be restored in sufficient numbers to enable the recreation of their lost ecological function. That would rule out the mammoth, or a mammothified elephant.

What looks like a spiffy technofix might provoke excitement and attract funding from the public or mega-rich celebrities but is unlikely to be a solution to extinction for any but a tiny handful of cases. If molecular biology really must be employed, then scientists should try cloning dead members of an endangered species to increase genetic diversity, as has been done in the case of the US black-footed ferret, with funding from the R&R foundation. In 2022, an attempt to recover the genome of the extinct Christmas Island rat, using different extant rat genomes as models, showed that it was impossible to recover around 5 per cent of the genome, with over twenty genes being completely absent. Key genes involved in the sense of smell and the immune system were particularly affected.

De-extinction, if it is ever possible, will not be simple. The primary focus of conservation efforts needs to be on the prevention of species loss, not on de-extinction. In the vast majority of cases, that will involve basic work to prevent habitat degradation and to keep humans away from the endangered organisms. That might be less sexy, but it is a lot more sensible.

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Up Next

Colossal Biosciences aims to revive the woolly mammoth, with a commitment to transparency and community engagement in their de-extinction efforts.

Early human hunting, along with climate change and changing vegetation, may have contributed to the extinction of the woolly mammoth.

How did climate change affect mammoth' habitat?

How did humans contribute to the wooly mammoth extinction?

What are the causes of the wooly mammoth extinction?

What environmental factors contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

Early human hunting may have contributed to the woolly mammoth's extinction, as they relied on mammoths for survival, using their coats, meat, and bones for warmth, food, and building materials.

How did humans contribute to the wooly mammoth extinction?

What are the causes of the wooly mammoth extinction?

Early human hunting and competition over resources may have contributed to the mammoth's extinction.

How did humans contribute to the wooly mammoth extinction?

What are the causes of the wooly mammoth extinction?

"Early human hunting is a possible contributor to the mammoth's extinction, as it would have taken advantage of the species' increased vulnerability due to climate change and reduced range."

How did climate change affect mammoth' habitat?

How did humans contribute to the wooly mammoth extinction?

What are the causes of the wooly mammoth extinction?

What environmental factors contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

Human activity, specifically early human hunting, may have contributed to the mammoth's extinction due to the predictable movement patterns of mammoths, making them an easy target for hunters.

How did humans contribute to the wooly mammoth extinction?

What are the causes of the wooly mammoth extinction?

The research results on the extinction of mammoths were published in the journal Nature.

Title:

Content: Partners news
The cause of the extinction of mammoths
Scientists have found that mammoths died out due to climate change
Photo: Stanislav Krasilnikov / TASS
An international team of researchers found that the cause of the extinction of mammoths in Siberia was primarily a sharp climate change, not human activity.
The article is published in the journal Nature.
Woolly mammoths became extinct only about four thousand years ago.
They were not only the main source of meat of ancient people – the latter made from their bones the basis for dwellings, from their tusks made harpoons and even musical instruments.
Therefore, there is a widespread theory that the main cause of extinction was humans.
Researchers from the Institute of Earth Sciences of St. Petersburg State University together with colleagues from the UK, Denmark, China, Norway and the United States decided to restore the appearance of the tundrosteppe, which was inhabited by mammoths.
To do this, they using the shotgun method — obtaining from a random massive sample of cloned fragments of the original sequence — analyzed the DNA of ancient plants and animals collected from 535 different places in the Arctic, where the mammoth lived, over 20 years.
They also analyzed the DNA of more than 1,500 modern plants and animals.
Researchers were able to map the distribution of populations of mammoths and other representatives of the megafauna of the tundrosteppe.
They saw that over time their populations and genetic diversity became smaller and smaller — making survival increasingly difficult.
With the end of the Pleistocene about 12 thousand years ago and the accompanying retreat of glaciers and the formation of rivers, lakes and marshes, vegetation has decreased in volume, and it has become insufficient to maintain the previous level of populations.
As the climate warms, trees and swamp plants have taken the place of former mammoth pastures.
“We have shown that climate change, in particular rainfall, has directly led to changes in vegetation.
According to our models, people did not have any influence on them [mammoths], ” said the first author of the work, a researcher at the University of Cambridge Yuchen Wang.
However, the extinction of mammoths was influenced not only by the warming of the climate itself.
“His speed was the last nail in the lid of the coffin – they (megafauna tundrosteppe – approx.
“Tape.ru ”) could not adapt quickly enough, when the landscape radically changed and food was not enough, ” said the head of the scientific group, Professor of Copenhagen and Cambridge universities Eske Willerslev.
Only what is important to you is in the “Tape of the Day ” in Telegram.
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The research results were published in Quaternary Research.

Title:

Content: A revolutionary breakthrough: how new technology can save large animals from extinction
QuatRes: Computational model shows the chances of extinction of large animals
1: 45.
Scientists from the University of California, San Diego have developed a computational model that can predict the probability of extinction of large animals.
This model takes into account the complexity of the interaction between humans and megafauna, the peculiarities of their life cycle and the environment.
The results of the study were published in the scientific journal Quaternary Research (QuatRes).
The authors believe that this model can become an important tool for the development of strategies and tactics for managing environmental policy in the face of the threat of extinction of species.
To create the model, the researchers chose Syncerus antiquus, a giant African buffalo that lived in Africa from 12 to 10 thousand years ago.
The reasons for the disappearance of this species are still a matter of discussion among experts.
Using computer simulations, the experts investigated how populations of Syncerus antiquus could evolve in different scenarios, given human and environmental exposures.
Factors such as climate change, the length of the vegetation period of plants and differences in natural conditions were considered.
40 rounds of simulation were conducted for each of the scenarios to estimate the probability of extinction of the Syncerus antiquus population.
The results showed that the probability of local extinction of buffalo increased with increased aggressiveness of males and in the conditions of climate change and instability of the feed base.
Now, the researchers plan to apply this model to ordinary livestock to improve agricultural planning in the face of climate change, as well as predict the extinction of other large representatives of wild fauna.
Author Makar Gorshenin
Makar Vadimovich Gorshenin is a student of the Moscow University of Finance and Law, a freelance correspondent of Pravda.Ru.

The research results on the extinction of woolly mammoths were published in the journals Nature and Quaternary Research.

The research results on the human-mammoth relationship were published in Quaternary Science Reviews.

Title:

Content:
This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility:

fact-checked

peer-reviewed publication

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Siberia's 'mammoth graveyard' reveals 800-year human interactions with woolly beasts

Woolly mammoths are evocative of a bygone era, when Earth was gripped within an Ice Age. Current knowledge places early mammoth ancestors in the Pliocene (2.58–5.33 million years ago, Ma) before their populations expanded in the Pleistocene (2.58 Ma–11,700 years ago, kyr). However, as climate changed, their numbers dwindled to isolated populations in modern Siberia and Alaska, until their last dated survival 4 kyr ago.

In the East Siberian Arctic (>70 °N), there is not only evidence of significant woolly mammoth populations, but also how humans interacted with them, the focus of new research in Quaternary Science Reviews.

Along the Berelekh River, Russia, a 'mammoth graveyard' can be found. Here, thousands of disarticulated bones, representing a minimum of 156 individual mammoths, found alongside an indicate the close proximity of these two communities, forming the Berelekh geoarchaeological complex.

Dr. Vladimir Pitulko, of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and colleagues aimed to assess the relationship between the 'mammoth graveyard' and the archaeological site through a re-examination of stratigraphic and paleogeographic data obtained in 2009, with new fieldwork focused on the left riverbanks where have readily yielded from their home in the sediment and appeared on the water's edge. Alongside them are remains of Pleistocene hare, Arctic fox and wolves, as well as soot and charcoal from hearths and worked mammoth tusks (one being an unfinished throwing spear).

The researchers suggest humans created these bone accumulations as a byproduct of the production of mammoth ivory technology, while hares may have been targeted for fur to produce winter clothing.

Notably, evidence of blowfly pupae activity on cavities in skulls and bones is indicative that the mammoth carcasses were added to the 'graveyard' de-fleshed. Indeed, there appears to be evidence of sorting of the bones, with only the most valuable transported to Berelekh from the area in which the mammoth was killed, leaving behind parts such as spinal columns, carpal ('hand') and tarsal ('foot') bones.

There are three radiocarbon dated peaks in woolly mammoth accumulation at 11.8, 12.2 and 12.4 kyr ago, which fall within known human settlement of the area (11.2–12.4 kyr ago) during the Bølling-Allerød deglacial, when the warmed and pollen evidence suggests the region became more arid.

Fluctuations in the abundance of mammoths in the 'graveyard' suggest human settlement of the area may also have changed through time (frequent occupation but not permanent), which the researchers attribute to on the floodplain permitting suitability for erecting campsites.

Radiocarbon dating of mammoth remains identifies their presence here pre-dating human settlement (beginning ~12.5 kyr ago), but also shows that humans remained in the area (until ~11.2 kyr ago) after mass mammoth remains accumulation declined (~11.8 kyr ago).

Given this, four possible causes are suggested by the scientists to explain such a significant mass accumulation of bones: 1) mass death by natural causes or human, 2) repeated group deaths in the same location, likely due to human predation, 3) concentration of remains by , such as river action, or 4) solely derived from human predation or scavenging from deceased carcasses.

However, the latter is considered to be the most likely to produce useful tools from ivory tusks, as well as meat to feed the community, as there is no evidence on the bones for a cause of mass death, radiocarbon ages do not cluster into multiple phases for recurrent death deposits and stream flows were unlikely to reach sufficient velocities to transport such heavy bones.

These findings are concurrent with mammoth remains at the Yana Paleolithic site, also in Siberia. Here, estimates suggest the 'graveyard' increased by 1–2 mammoths per year rather than a mass death event, a figure Dr. Pitulko and colleagues conclude could be similar or even higher for Berelekh.

This research is significant as it alters the previously-held belief that there was a lag of 50–80 years between mammoth bone accumulation from natural processes (such as deposition in flood channels) and , instead now defining a close relationship between the two over 700–800 years. Sadly, now that human-mammoth relationship has continued as ivory hunters have looted the site beyond further study.

More information: Vladimir V. Pitulko et al, From the Berelekh 'mammoth graveyard' to Berelekh geo-archaeological complex: Paleoenvironment, site formation processes, and human-mammoth relationships, Quaternary Science Reviews (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.quascirev.2024.108692

Journal information: Quaternary Science Reviews

© 2024 Science X Network

Citation: Siberia's 'mammoth graveyard' reveals 800-year human interactions with woolly beasts (2024, June 10) retrieved 10 June 2024 from https://phys.org/news/2024-06-siberia-mammoth-graveyard-reveals-year.html
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"Humans interacted with woolly mammoths during the Ice Age, specifically during the Bølling-Allerød deglacial period, when the mammoths provided valuable resources for ancient humans."

What are the causes of the wooly mammoth extinction?

from 300,000 years ago up until 10,000 years ago

Humans interacted with woolly mammoths during the Bølling-Allerød deglacial period, with evidence showing an 800-year relationship between human and mammoth bone accumulation.

from 300,000 years ago up until 10,000 years ago

Humans interacted with woolly mammoths during the Bølling-Allerød deglacial period, and this interaction may have contributed to the animals' extinction.

Title:

Content: Woolly Mammoth Bones Unearthed in Austrian Wine Cellar

It wasn’t the first time that ancient artifacts were discovered in one of Kamptal’s wine cellars.

An Austrian winemaker renovating his cellar unearthed a trove of woolly mammoth bones that could expand our understanding of the relationship between humans and the prehistoric beasts.

Andreas Pernerstorfer’s winery is in the notable winemaking and cultural region of Kamptal in northeastern Austria. After stumbling upon the huge bones in the dirt floor, he reported his discovery to Austria’s Federal Monuments Office. The Austrian Archaeological Institute has been excavating the site since March 2024 to a depth of 55 feet below ground and says it’s the first significant paleontology site found in Austria in a century.

The bones are believed to be between 30,000 and 40,000 years old and belonged to at least three woolly mammoths. According to Hannah Parow-Souchon, the paleontologist leading the excavation, the discovery is significant because mammoth bones are rarely found packed together. This could mean they were bunched there by humans, which could indicate they were hunted and slaughtered by humans; the site might be the remains of a Holocene Epoch cookout.

Most archaeologists agree that humans gathered in groups and used spears and other tools to take down woolly mammoths and other megafauna, which would have been immense sources of meat, hides, and bones to use as raw materials for tools. This activity could have contributed to the animals’ extinction

There is some debate whether preying on the massive beasts was a regular practice for Stone Age people, and science is foggy about how a band of simple humans could get the drop on an animal that stood 10 feet tall, weighed as much as six tons, and had fearsome protective tusks. The process would reveal a lot about coordination and planning among Paleolithic people.

Parow-Souchon said in a statement from the Austrian Academy of Sciences that it is possible that humans set a trap for mammoths there. She also said it was the most significant discovery of woolly mammoth remains in more than 100 years; most such sites in Europe have been dug up and hollowed out, with their archaeological value lost over time.

This is not the first such find in Kamptal. About 150 years ago, relics of early human life—including flint artifacts, jewelry fossils, and charcoal—were discovered there in a wine cellar next door.

What are the causes of the wooly mammoth extinction?

from 300,000 years ago up until 10,000 years ago

The extinction of woolly mammoths is attributed to both climate change and human activity, although the exact causes are still debated among scientists.

Title:

Content: Science 2021-11-11T12: 03: 35 + 02: 00
Ukrainian News
Giant armadillos and mammoths.
Scientists have told what the Earth would look like if there were no people on it.
Giant armadillos and mammoths.
Scientists have told what the Earth would look like if there were no people on it.
This is what a glyptodon might look like, an armadillo-like creature that went extinct during the Ice Age.
Photo by Stocktrek Images
Man has greatly changed the landscape of planet Earth since the time of the development of tools.
And the more active the progress, the faster a person changes the face of the world around.
But if there were no humans on the planet, then there would be giant animals that are now extinct.
This conclusion was made by scientists, writes the publication Live science.
The land would belong to giant plants and animals.
Along with megafauna, Neanderthals, the distant ancestors of man, would also live.
Animals would be bigger.
For example, moa birds, similar to ostriches, would still live in New Zealand.
After humans came to the islands, the birds became extinct in 200 years.
According to Seren Faurbi of the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, for thousands of years, humans have played a crucial role in the extinction of many giant animals.
Without us, today ’ s Earth would in many ways resemble an African ecosystem teeming with life.
Thus, the animal world of Europe would resemble Africa with its elephants, lions and rhinos.
But instead of African lions, cave lions would live - they are larger.
And in Africa, there would be giant bears and animals similar to armadillos, but the size of a car.
Scientists are still arguing about what led to the extinction of mammoths.
This could be both climate change and human activity.
Christopher Doughty of the University of Northern Arizona studied how representatives of megafauna contributed to the distribution of seeds.
He believes that with the extinction of large animals, the redistribution of elements such as phosphorus, calcium and magnesium decreased by 90%.
Without humans, these elements would have been more evenly distributed, he said, leading to a more productive system.
Without humans, the climate would be different.
But what exactly – scientists can not say exactly.
As reported by Ukrainian News, in Tanzania found the bones of a previously unknown species of titanosaur with a unique coccyx in the shape of a heart.
The deposits in which the bones were found are dated to 100-110 million years old.
On the British Isle of Wight, archaeologists have found two new species of dinosaurs that were predators of large size.
In size, the fossil lizards were no less than a bus and hunted both on land and in water.
They had crocodile-like snouts, sharp teeth, and a whip-like tail.
In addition, scientists have discovered a small crab that was stuck in wood tar 100 million years ago, so perfectly preserved.
Subscribe to the newsletter of the most important and interesting news
It comes out at the end of the day, it takes 5-7 minutes to read.
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How did humans contribute to the wooly mammoth extinction?

What environmental factors contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

Humans interacted with woolly mammoths during the period when the found bones and artifacts date back to, which is between 30,000 and 40,000 years old, corresponding to the Bølling-Allerød deglacial period.

Title:

Content: Austrian Man Discovers Hundreds of Mammoth Bones While Renovating His Wine Cellar

Owner Andreas Pernerstorfer thought he’d found a piece of wood, but then he remembered something his grandfather had said about finding teeth in the cellar decades ago

Andreas Pernerstorfer was renovating his wine cellar in northern Austria when he stumbled upon something unusual.

Initially, he thought he’d found a piece of wood that had been left behind by his grandfather, he tells BBC News’ Bethany Bell.

But then Pernerstorfer remembered something his grandfather had mentioned once about finding teeth in the cellar while renovating it decades ago. He wondered if what he thought was a piece of wood was actually something more special.

When he reported his discovery, it turned out his instincts were right: Pernerstorfer’s wine cellar was full of huge mammoth bones—at least 300 of them, reports CNN’s Lianne Kolirin.

Since the middle of May, researchers with the Austrian Archaeological Institute at the Austrian Academy of Sciences (OeAW) have been excavating the site, which is located in Gobelsburg, a small town about 45 minutes northwest of Vienna.

So far, they’ve found bones that belonged to three individual mammoths, plus charcoal and stone artifacts. They believe the bones—which were stacked on top of one another—are between 30,000 and 40,000 years old.

“I’ve worked in many parts of the world and have never seen so many mammoths in one place,” says Hannah Parow-Souchon, the Austrian Academy of Sciences archaeologist who is leading the dig, to the Washington Post’s Victoria Bisset.

Eventually, the bones will be given to the Natural History Museum Vienna for restoration. Since they started their work this spring, archaeologists have only excavated a 129-square-foot site. They hope to return in August to continue digging.

Roughly 150 years ago, a neighboring wine cellar turned up charcoal, flint artifacts and jewelry. The archaeologists think the two wine cellars probably belong to the same site. Meanwhile, other similar sites in Austria and neighboring countries were excavated more than a century ago and have “largely been lost to modern research,” according to a statement from the Austrian Academy of Sciences.

The discovery marks the “first time we’ve been able to investigate something like this in Austria using modern methods,” says Parow-Souchon in the statement. “Such a dense bone layer of mammoths is rare.”

It’s not clear how or why three different mammoths ended up in the same spot—nor whether they died there or died elsewhere and were later transported to the site. One possibility is that early humans set up a trap or took advantage of the natural topography to ensnare them.

“We have strong indications that [humans] hunted for them but we have no idea how,” says Parow-Souchon to NBC News’ Alex Holmes. “We know that elephants have issues with slopes, so maybe they were hunted on a slope and therefore vulnerable.”

Mammoths, including woolly mammoths, are the extinct ancestors of modern elephants. These huge, tusked mammals roamed the Earth during the Pleistocene and early Holocene epochs, before disappearing roughly 4,000 years ago. Today, discoveries of the remains of these massive creatures can reveal insights into the species—and the ways that early humans interacted with them.

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from 300,000 years ago up until 10,000 years ago

Climate change is identified as a key environmental factor that contributed to the decline of the woolly mammoth population by reducing their grassland habitats.

According to most recent research, what is the primary cause of wooly mammoth extinction?

How did climate change affect mammoth' habitat?

What are the causes of the wooly mammoth extinction?

What environmental factors contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

Climate change is an environmental factor that may have contributed to the decline of large mammal species, including the woolly mammoth, during the transition from the Ice Age to the present interglacial period.

According to most recent research, what is the primary cause of wooly mammoth extinction?

How did climate change affect mammoth' habitat?

What are the causes of the wooly mammoth extinction?

What aspects of climate change contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

What environmental factors contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

Climate change is a possible environmental factor that contributed to the population decline of Neanderthals and possibly other Ice Age species.

What are the causes of the wooly mammoth extinction?

Climate change may have contributed to population decline, as it is linked to the megafaunal extinction event that occurred around the end of the Ice Age.

According to most recent research, what is the primary cause of wooly mammoth extinction?

What are the causes of the wooly mammoth extinction?

What aspects of climate change contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

What environmental factors contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

Climate change may have contributed to the population decline of woolly mammoths by altering their habitat and making them more vulnerable to predators.

According to most recent research, what is the primary cause of wooly mammoth extinction?

How did climate change affect mammoth' habitat?

What are the causes of the wooly mammoth extinction?

What aspects of climate change contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

What environmental factors contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

Homo sapiens may have contributed to the extinction of mammoths due to increased hunting, in combination with climate change and changing vegetation.

How did climate change affect mammoth' habitat?

How did humans contribute to the wooly mammoth extinction?

What are the causes of the wooly mammoth extinction?

What environmental factors contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

Homo sapiens may have contributed to the extinction of mammoths, as they relied on mammoths for warmth, food, and building materials during the Ice Age.

How did humans contribute to the wooly mammoth extinction?

What are the causes of the wooly mammoth extinction?

"Homo sapiens may have played a role in the extinction of mammoths by hunting them when their range was limited by shifting vegetation patterns caused by climate change."

How did climate change affect mammoth' habitat?

How did humans contribute to the wooly mammoth extinction?

What are the causes of the wooly mammoth extinction?

changing vegetation
human hunting
climate change

What environmental factors contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

Early human hunters, possibly Homo sapiens, may have contributed to the extinction of mammoths by taking advantage of their predictable movement patterns.

How did humans contribute to the wooly mammoth extinction?

What are the causes of the wooly mammoth extinction?

Human activity may have contributed to the extinction of mammoths, as it has with other large species such as moa birds and Haast eagles, suggesting that Homo sapiens played a role in the disappearance of these megafauna.

How did humans contribute to the wooly mammoth extinction?

What are the causes of the wooly mammoth extinction?

Climate change contributed to the woolly mammoth's extinction by causing a loss of habitat, in combination with changing vegetation and human hunting.

According to most recent research, what is the primary cause of wooly mammoth extinction?

How did climate change affect mammoth' habitat?

How did humans contribute to the wooly mammoth extinction?

What are the causes of the wooly mammoth extinction?

What environmental factors contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

Climate change may have contributed to the woolly mammoth's extinction through the loss of habitat.

According to most recent research, what is the primary cause of wooly mammoth extinction?

How did climate change affect mammoth' habitat?

What are the causes of the wooly mammoth extinction?

What environmental factors contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

Climate change played a role in the woolly mammoth's extinction by reducing their habitat and increasing their vulnerability to predators.

According to most recent research, what is the primary cause of wooly mammoth extinction?

How did climate change affect mammoth' habitat?

What are the causes of the wooly mammoth extinction?

What aspects of climate change contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

What environmental factors contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

Climate change may have contributed to the woolly mammoth's extinction by reducing their habitat and making it difficult for them to find refuge in a warming world.

According to most recent research, what is the primary cause of wooly mammoth extinction?

How did climate change affect mammoth' habitat?

What are the causes of the wooly mammoth extinction?

What aspects of climate change contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

What environmental factors contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

Climate change contributed to the woolly mammoth's extinction, along with additional pressure from human hunting.

According to most recent research, what is the primary cause of wooly mammoth extinction?

How did humans contribute to the wooly mammoth extinction?

What aspects of climate change contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

What environmental factors contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

Humans interacted with woolly mammoths in the area for around 800 years, according to recent research that redefines the relationship between human and mammoth activities.

Humans interacted with woolly mammoths in Siberia for approximately 800 years.

Climate change is believed to be one of the environmental factors that contributed to the extinction of the woolly mammoth, along with changing vegetation and human hunting.

How did climate change affect mammoth' habitat?

How did humans contribute to the wooly mammoth extinction?

What are the causes of the wooly mammoth extinction?

What aspects of climate change contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

What environmental factors contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

Climate change is a possible environmental factor that may have contributed to the mammoth's extinction.

According to most recent research, what is the primary cause of wooly mammoth extinction?

What are the causes of the wooly mammoth extinction?

What aspects of climate change contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

What environmental factors contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

Climate change may have contributed to the mammoth's extinction by limiting their range and making them more vulnerable to predators.

According to most recent research, what is the primary cause of wooly mammoth extinction?

How did climate change affect mammoth' habitat?

What are the causes of the wooly mammoth extinction?

What aspects of climate change contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

What environmental factors contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

The extinction of the woolly mammoth may have been caused by climate change, as the species may not have been able to find refuge in a warming world.

According to most recent research, what is the primary cause of wooly mammoth extinction?

How did climate change affect mammoth' habitat?

What are the causes of the wooly mammoth extinction?

What aspects of climate change contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

What environmental factors contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

Climate change is identified as a key environmental factor that contributed to the extinction of woolly mammoths, alongside additional pressure from human hunting activities.

According to most recent research, what cause of wooly mammoth extinction is not as important as previously believed?

According to most recent research, what is the primary cause of wooly mammoth extinction?

How did humans contribute to the wooly mammoth extinction?

What are the causes of the wooly mammoth extinction?

What aspects of climate change contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

What environmental factors contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

Neanderthals were found to coexist with mammoths, specifically the Steppe mammoth, as evidenced by the discovery of Neanderthal tools and mammoth remains at a graveyard site.

Title:

Content: Skip to main content

200,000-year-old 'mammoth graveyard' found in UK

Researchers have unearthed a mammoth "graveyard" filled with the bony remains of five individuals — an infant, two juveniles and two adults — that died during the last ice age at what is now a quarry in Swindon, a town in southwest England.

Alongside the mammoth remains, researchers discovered stone tools crafted by Neanderthals, including a hand ax and small flint tools known as scrapers, which were used to clean fresh animal hides, according to DigVentures, the crowdsourced archaeological outfit in the U.K. that led the excavation. However, the team has yet to analyze the mammoth bones to determine whether they have Neanderthal tool marks on them.

"Finding mammoth bones is always extraordinary, but finding ones that are so old and well preserved, and in such close proximity to Neanderthal stone tools is exceptional," Lisa Westcott Wilkins, the co-founder of DigVentures, said in a statement.

Related: Photos: See the Ancient Faces of a Man-Bun Wearing Bloke and a Neanderthal woman

Two amateur fossil hunters, Sally and Neville Hollingworth, discovered the graveyard and Neanderthal tools. Soon after, DigVentures organized two field seasons in 2019 and 2020 to excavate the site. The archaeologist-led work uncovered more ice age remnants, including delicate beetle wings, fragile freshwater snail shells and mammoth remains, such as tusks, leg bones, ribs and vertebrae belonging to a species of Steppe mammoth, a group whose descendants include the woolly mammoth. Although early Steppe mammoths stood up to 13.1 feet (4 meters) high at the shoulders, the five mammoth individuals at the graveyard were small, an indication that the species might have shrunk during an especially cold spell during the ice age, according to DigVentures.

Researchers dated the site to between 220,000 and 210,000 years ago, toward the end of an interglacial, or warm period, when Neanderthals still lived in Britain. Once temperatures dropped, however, the Neanderthals moved farther south.

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Going forward, the team plans to figure out why so many mammoths died at one spot and whether Neanderthals hunted the beasts or scavenged their remains. Some previously found prehistoric evidence suggests Neanderthals stalked mammoths and other large pachyderms. For instance, Neanderthal footprints were found at a 100,000-year-old "nursery" for straight-tusked elephants (Palaeoloxodon antiquus) in southern Spain, Live Science previously reported

The new graveyard findings are described in the new BBC documentary "Attenborough and the Mammoth Graveyard," with Sir David Attenborough and Ben Garrod, an evolutionary biologist at the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom, who joined DigVentures on site to film the excavations. The show airs at 8 p.m. GMT on Dec. 30 on BBC One.

"The findings have enormous value for understanding the human occupation of Britain, and the delicate environmental evidence recovered will also help us understand it in the context of past climate change," Duncan Wilson, the chief executive of Historic England, a British historical preservation body, said in a statement. "Through these finds and the research that will follow, we look forward to further light being shed on life in Britain 200,000 years ago."

The work was funded by Historic England and supported by Keith Wilkinson of ARCA at the University of Winchester, the site's landowners Hills Group Quarry Products and a wider specialist team from several U.K. research institutions.

Originally published on Live Science.

Laura is an editor at Live Science. She edits Life's Little Mysteries and reports on general science, including archaeology and animals. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Scholastic, Popular Science and Spectrum, a site on autism research. She has won multiple awards from the Society of Professional Journalists and the Washington Newspaper Publishers Association for her reporting at a weekly newspaper near Seattle. Laura holds a bachelor's degree in English literature and psychology from Washington University in St. Louis and an advanced certificate in science writing from NYU.

The woolly mammoth roamed the northern hemisphere.

Where were the last areas of wooly mammoth habitat?

islands in the Arctic Ocean near Siberia and Alaska