Extinct Species, features and articles | Educational Science

Jul 3, 2017

Mammoth resurrection: 11 hurdles to bringing back an ice age beast

Many mammoth questions (Image credit: Beatrissa/Shutterstock)The road to bringing back the mammoth — a giant that went extinct at the end of the last ice age — is filled with barriers. Scientists have pieced together the genomes of four different mammoths over the past few years, but more hurdles remain:...

Aug 25, 2017

Mammoth Tooth Reveals Beast Once Tramped Around Austin, Texas

CALGARY, Alberta — About 67,000 years ago, a gigantic mammoth chowed down on enormous mouthfuls of grass in Texas, just west of where modern-day Austin is located, according to new research. The finding is surprising, given that the beast's remains were discovered in Waco, Texas, more than 120 miles (200...

Nov 2, 2017

Trapped! Woolly Mammoth Bachelors Often Met Disastrous Ends

Pity the male woolly mammoth: These poor creatures were more likely to meet their end in natural traps — falling through thin ice, tumbling into holes or getting stuck in mudflows — than their female counterparts, a new study finds. Researchers made the discovery after determining the sex of 95...

Feb 12, 2020

The last woolly mammoths on Earth had disastrous DNA

Dwarf woolly mammoths that lived on Siberia's Wrangel Island until about 4,000 years ago were plagued by genetic problems, carrying DNA that increased their risk of diabetes, developmental defects and low sperm count, a new study finds. These mammoths couldn't even smell flowers, the researchers reported. I have never been...

Aug 11, 2020

Woolly mammoth with preserved poop, wool and ligaments dredged from Siberian lake

A man following a reindeer herd in northwestern Siberia made the discovery of a lifetime when he passed by a lake on July 20; poking out of the water was the enormous skull of a woolly mammoth dating back at least 10,000 years. When scientists came to investigate the mammoth...

Feb 17, 2021

Oldest sequenced DNA belonged to 1 million-year-old mystery mammoth

The oldest DNA ever decoded belonged to a mammoth from a mysterious, previously unknown lineage that lived about 1.2 million years ago, a new study finds. Previously, the oldest known sequenced genome came from a horse that lived up to 780,000 years ago, in what is now Canada's Yukon Territory....

Jun 15, 2021

Gold miners discover giant skeletons of 3 woolly mammoths

Gold miners have discovered three partial skeletons of three woolly mammoths, which may have been part of the same family, at Little Flake Mine near Dawson City, Yukon, in Canada. They turned over the bones to the Yukon government. We seem to have one large full-grown mammoth, one younger adult...

Aug 12, 2021

Woolly mammoth's epic 50,000-mile journey retraced

A mammoth that lived in Alaska about 17,000 years ago traveled so far and wide that, if it had walked in a straight line, it would have gone all the way around the world — nearly twice. Recent analysis of the woolly ice age beast's preserved tusk revealed that in...

Dec 22, 2021

Woolly mammoths survived on mainland North America until 5,000 years ago, DNA reveals

Woolly mammoths may have survived in North America thousands of years longer than scientists previously thought, vials of Alaskan permafrost reveal. The hairy beasts might have persisted in what is now the Yukon, in Canada, until around 5,000 years ago — 5,000 years longer than experts previously estimated, a new...

Jun 28, 2022

30,000 year-old mummified baby mammoth found by Canadian gold miner

A near-perfectly mummified, 30,000 year-old baby woolly mammoth has been unearthed from Canadian permafrost by a miner in the Klondike region's gold fields. The stunningly preserved baby, which measured just 4.5 feet (1.4 meters) long and has much of its hair and skin intact, was described by officials as the...

Oct 13, 2022

The CIA wants to bring woolly mammoths back from extinction

The CIA is funding research into resurrecting extinct animals — including the woolly mammoth and tiger-like thylacine — according to news reports. Via a venture capital investment firm called In-Q-Tel, which the CIA funds, the American intelligence agency has pledged money to the Texas-based tech company Colossal Biosciences. According to...

Apr 7, 2023

Woolly mammoths weren't always shaggy. Here's when they evolved some of their trademark features.

Woolly mammoths weren't always the shaggy beasts depicted in books and movies. And now, scientists have a better idea of when these behemoths evolved some of their most iconic traits. Researchers from Sweden compared the genomes of 23 Siberian woolly mammoths (Mammuthus primigenius) to the genomes of 28 modern-day Asian...

May 5, 2023

Woolly mammoths were seasonal sex fiends just like elephants, study finds

Male woolly mammoths turned into sex fiends when in heat, just like modern elephants do, a new study of ancient hormones preserved in the tusks of the extinct giants has revealed. By charting the annual surges of testosterone in a 33,000-year-old mammoth tusk, researchers have discovered that mammoths underwent musth....

Jan 9, 2024

Huge, complete mammoth tusk accidentally discovered by North Dakota coal miners

Coal miners in North Dakota made an astonishing find when they unearthed a partial mammoth skeleton with a complete, 7 foot (2.1 meter) tusk. The miners discovered the well-preserved mammoth tusk while working at the Freedom Mine, near the city of Beulah, over Memorial Day weekend last May. According to...

Jan 17, 2024

'That's a huge amount of movement for a single mammoth': Woolly female's steps retraced based on chemistry of 14,000-year-old tusk

Scientists have retraced the journey of a female woolly mammoth from her birthplace in present-day Canada to eastern central Alaska, where she met her end around 14,000 years ago at the hands of hunter-gatherers. The mammoth, whose name Élmayuujey'eh translates to hella lookin in the aboriginal Kaska language, was likely...