The Woolly Mammoth

The woolly mammoth is an extinct herbivore related to elephants who trudged across the steppe-tundra of Eurasia and North America from around 300,000 years ago until their numbers seriously dropped around 11,000 years ago. A few last stragglers survived into the Holocene Epoch (the current stage of time we are in now.) They survived on island refuges off the coast of Siberia and Alaska. One of these - Wrangel Island - harbored the last known group of mammoths until around 3,700 years ago. The woolly mammoth had huge, towering bodies, curved tusks, shaggy coats and thick layers of insulating fat to keep them warm. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors (the Neanderthals) would probably have agreed that a successful hunting of the mammoth would have provided a fairly decent amount of rich meat. And their bones could be used both to support huts and create tools and artifacts. As such, the fact that humans poked their spears into these creatures is often viewed as a crucial factor in the woolly mammoth's extinction. However, this mystery has not yet been completely unraveled. Scientists believe the changing (warming) climate could have also played a part in their extinction. Genetic research conducted during the past decade has shown that the Asian elephant is the woolly mammoth's most closely related living relative. They look similar enough to hint a connection, but mammoths were clearly slightly better adapted to dealing with cold circumstances than their tropical sisters.

How do we know that the mammoth existed? Scientist have found countless mammoth fossils, or bones, all over the world. In fact, scientists have even

found very well-preserved, or mummified mammoth bodies in sheets of ice. These mummified remains are part of the reason scientists came to know exactly how hairy and woolly the mammoths actually were. Another reason scientists know so much about mammoths is that early humans painted pictures of them on cave walls. These pictures depicted hunting parties chasing after mammoth herds and trying to bring down the great beasts with spears.The woolly mammoth's habitat consisted of the arid steppe-tundra spanning all the way from north-western Canada, through the Beringia (the

exposed and extended Bering land bridge) to the west of Europe and as far south as Spain. The mammoth shared these northern territories with other mammals during the Ice Age. The most important mammal to interact with the mammoth was the human. When the mammoths were at their greatest numbers, humans mainly hunted animals and foraged for food. These hunters would follow herds of animals over incredibly long distances in order to hunt them. The woolly mammoth provided a great amount of food and other important things for these humans.

Where in the World?

Connection to Humans

Certain features of the woolly mammoth allowed it to survive very well in this harsh environment. The most obvious feature was its hair and wool. This coat helped the mammoth maintain a warm and stable body temperature no matter how cold the landscape became. The coarse hair would keep ice and frost from collecting too close to the mammoth's body, which left the softer, wool inner-layer free to keep the animal extra warm. Another feature was the mammoth's large tusks. These tusks were very long and curved out wide from the mammoth's head. It was able to use these tusks for protection. Besides humans, there were other predators the mammoth had to face. The American lion was an incredibly large predatory cat. The mammoth's tusks could be swung into an attacking lion to keep the predator away or even injure it. Mammoths are driven to stand and fight or protect their young. They might have even charged humans with their large tusks, looking to make a crushing blow.

What do you think led to the extinction of the woolly mammoths?How do you think the woolly mammoths used their giant tusks?

A Hairy Picture

Humans were very smart hunters. Hunting in large parties, the humans would most likely isolate a mammoth from its herd and attack it all at once in great numbers. Wielding their spears expertly, the humans would bring the mammoth down as quickly as possible, and then set about butchering it with stone scraping tools, axes and knives. It is believed that the success

of human hunters was a large part of why the mammoth became extinct. After the kill, some human groups in central and eastern Europe used the large boned to build themselves huts. Also, early modern humans produced tools and figurative objects carved out of mammoth ivory and even used them as subjects in some of the impressive cave art in Europe.

ExtinctionLike many of the other huge mammals that darted across the Pleistocene plains, the woolly mammoth began to struggle when the climate warmed up after the end of the Last Glacial Maximum - the most recent cold spell, in which the ice sheets reached peak growth between 26,500-19,000 years ago. Mammoths were not built to be able to rapidly adapt to new conditions, and their numbers plummeted. Smaller populations of mammoths would have made them much more vulnerable to any degree of human hunting. The weakening effect of the climate and the changing habitat was enhanced by the effect of human spears. Only a very small number of mammoths managed to dodge these factors for some time and make it into the Holocene, but only because they jumped ship to the safely isolated islands off the Alaskan and Siberian coasts. The last known mammoth population clung on until around 3,700 years ago on Wrangel Island. Scientists love to argue over whether this warming climate was the mammoth's death sentence, or whether human hunting should largely be

held responsible. As with a lot of things in life, the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle, and the final word has not been spoken.

What do you think the world would be like if woolly mammoths would have not become extinct and continued to live alongside humans?Which do you think was more of the cause of their extinction, the

climate or humans? or both?

Frozen in TimeDiscovered in 2010 in Russia's Arctic Circle, was an almost perfectly-preserved 39,000 year old female mammoth. The young woolly mammoth was discovered by indigenous Yakut tusk-hunters, during the brief northern summer and appeared almost totally intact, including its distinctive reddish fur. She was just over 221 pounds, as well as her tusk rings and body, proportions of each told scientists that she was likely between 6 and 11 years old at the time of death. A mere youngling in a species that is thought to have lived up to 80 years old. Scientists named her Yuka. Yuka's brain was found intact. This is the first time such an organ from an animal that lived over thousands of years ago to be discovered. Usually over time the brain disintegrates. Yuka's body has provided the forensic evidence for bold theories about her likely demise.Scientists from the University of Michigan suggested that Yuka may have survived an attack by a now-extinct cave lion, with left scars on her skin. Similar lion attacks on baby elephants can be observed in Africa, and the incisions match up.But despite getting lucky once, Yuka did not manage a later escape, and a broken leg, and a series of unhealed bites indicates that she might have been pursued in the moments before her death. The most intriguing part is an apparent serrated cut from her head to tail, across the back. Unlike an animal, which tends to go through the stomach or suffocates the elephant though the trunk, these cuts appear much more patterned and methodical. Scientists now assume that she may have been chased by a lion, with a human

tribe watching from a distance, waiting for it to kill its prey, before shooing the lion away. Such tactics are still practiced by the Dorobo tribe in Kenya. Two more frozen mammoths were found in 2017 in the Swiss Alps. As the shrinking glaciers start to melt around the world, more discoveries will likely surface due to climate change.

Resurrecting the Woolly MammothJurassic Park imagined a future in which it was possible to bring dinosaurs back to life. Now, that fiction may become reality as geneticists seek to resurrect the woolly mammoth.Because many mammoth corpses are so well preserved, scientists have been able to extract DNA from the animals. One particularly good specimen was a female mammoth in her 50s, nicknamed Buttercup, that lived about 40,000 years ago. In theory, this DNA could be used to clone woolly mammoths, bringing them back from extinction. The

project is called "The Wooly Mammoth Revival."This concept is highly contested in the scientific world. Some objections are that the mammoth's habitat isn't what it was when the creature roamed the Earth, so where would they live? Others contest that a habitat could be created for the creatures if they were brought back.Another concern is how microbes have changed in the

10,000 years since woolly mammoths have roamed the Earth. Animals rely on microbes to help digest food. If the mammoth's microbes went extinct, the animal may suffer if brought back. So far, geneticists from Harvard have used a gene-editing technique to insert mammoths genes into the DNA of elephant skin cells. This is far from cloning mammoths, but it is a first step to manipulating the DNA found in mammoth corpses.Scientists also state that they might be able to use living elephant DNA to fill in the gaps. The research involves editing the DNA of Asian elephant embryos so they're born with some of the characteristics of their long-dead cousins, including thick fur, an insulating layer of fat and the ability to release blood oxygen at lower temperatures.

1. Do you think there are ethical concerns about trying to bring back the woolly mammoth?2. If science can bring back woolly mammoths, what do you think about trying to bring back dinosaurs?3. Is there an extinct animal you would like to be brought back?4. Do you think there is a danger of extinct diseases reappearing because of the new thawing of the ice sheets?5. What positive impacts would scientist have by bringing back the woolly mammoth?6. What negative impacts would scientist have by bringing back the woolly mammoth?7. Do you think scientists are "playing god" by bringing back to life an extinct animal?

Engaging Questions

Curious Dragonfly LLCwww.curiousdragonfly.comTrina Terrell303.903.5319