Tusk reveals woolly mammoth's massive lifetime mileage

[UngulateNerd92]

Scientists have analysed the chemistry locked inside the tusk of a woolly mammoth to work out how far it travelled in a lifetime.

The research shows that the Ice Age animal travelled a distance equivalent to circling the Earth twice.

Woolly mammoths were the hairy cousins of today's elephants, roaming northern latitudes during a prehistoric cold period known as the Pleistocene.

Tusk reveals woolly mammoth's massive lifetime mileage

 

[UngulateNerd92]

A new analysis of a mammoth tusk tracks the movements of an Ice Age icon

Woolly mammoths were champion walkers. In the space of his lifetime, one single mammoth who trundled through the ancient Arctic traveled so persistently that his accumulated mileage would have been enough to circumnavigate the planet—twice. The clues come from geochemical isotopes locked inside the Ice Age beast’s tusk, a toothy time capsule that acts like an ancient mammoth tracker.

The mammoth at the center of the new Science paper by University of Alaska Fairbanks researcher Matthew Wooller and colleagues lived to be about 28 years old, and roamed around ancient Alaska around 17,100 years ago. Based upon the single X chromosome found in the genetic analysis, the researchers identify the mammoth as a male. What’s special about the tusk, though, isn’t just how well-preserved the huge tooth is, but the isotopes preserved within.

Woolly Mammoths Roamed Far and Wide Just Like Living Elephants | Science | Smithsonian Magazine

 

[Jurek7]

Thanks for sharing. Thanks especially for linking the real paper, not only news from a second-hand or third-hand source! We all known that such news are often getting distorted and sensationalized, and include made-up claims which are found nowhere in the original discovery. Could you in future link real papers with similar news?

 

[UngulateNerd92]

Thanks for sharing. Thanks especially for linking the real paper, not only news from a second-hand or third-hand source! We all known that such news are often getting distorted and sensationalized, and include made-up claims which are found nowhere in the original discovery. Could you in future link real papers with similar news?

You are welcome. I see what you mean... I'll do my best. I will say that all of these articles I post, I mostly get from my LinkedIn news feed and the people and institutions that post them seem trustworthy and professional. I apologize for having used the wrong sources at times.