Woolly Mammoth Clones Closer Than Ever, Thanks to Genome Sequencing

A new analysis of the woolly mammoth genome has revealed several adaptations that allowed the furry beasts to thrive in the subzero temperatures of the last ice age, including a metabolism that allowed them to pack on insulating fat, smaller ears that lost less heat and a reduced sensitivity to cold.

The findings could enable researchers to "resurrect" the ice-age icon — or at least a hybridized Asian elephant with a few of the physical traits of its woolly-haired cousin, said study co-author Vincent Lynch, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Chicago.

"It won't be that long till we're technically able to do it, but whether we should is a different question," Lynch told Live Science, referring to cloning a mammoth. "I don't think we should."

From the free online book:

http://creationscience.com/onlinebook/FrozenMammoths.html

For centuries, stories have been told of frozen carcasses of huge, elephant-like animals called mammoths, buried in the tundra of northeastern Siberia. These mammoths, with curved tusks sometimes more than 13 feet long, were so fresh-looking that some believed they were simply large moles living underground. Some called them “ice-rats.”

People thought that when mammoths surfaced and saw daylight, they died...

This was an early explanation for the frozen mammoths. As people learned other strange details, theories multiplied. Unfortunately, theories that explained some details could not explain others. Some explanations, such as the one above, appear ludicrous today...

The common misconception that mammoths lived in areas of extreme cold comes primarily from popular drawings of mammoths living comfortably in snowy, Arctic regions. The artists, in turn, were influenced by earlier opinions based on the mammoth’s hairy coat, thick skin, and a 3.5-inch layer of fat under the skin. However, animals with these characteristics do not necessarily live in cold climates. Let’s examine these characteristics more closely.

Hair. The mammoth’s hairy coat no more implies an Arctic adaptation than a woolly coat does for a sheep. Mammoths lacked erector muscles that fluff up an animal’s fur and create insulating air pockets. Neuville, who conducted the most detailed study of mammoth skin and hair, wrote: “It appears to me impossible to find, in the anatomical examination of the skin and pelage [hair], any argument in favor of adaptation to the cold.” Long hair on a mammoth’s legs hung to its toes. Had it walked in snow, snow and ice would have caked on its hairy “ankles.” Each step into and out of snow would have pulled or worn away the “ankle” hair. All hoofed animals living in the Arctic, including the musk ox, have fur, not hair, on their legs. Fur, especially oily fur, holds a thick layer of stagnant air (an excellent insulator) between the snow and skin. With the mammoth’s greaseless hair, much more snow would touch the skin, melt, and increase the heat transfer 10-to-100 fold. Later refreezing would seriously harm the animal.

Skin. Mammoth and elephant skin are similar in thickness and structure. Both lack oil glands, making them vulnerable to cold, damp climates. Arctic mammals have both oil glands and erector muscles—equipment absent in mammoths.

Fat. Some animals living in temperate or even tropical zones, such as the rhinoceros, have thick layers of fat, while many Arctic animals, such as reindeer and caribou, have little fat. Thick layers of fat under the skin simply show that food was plentiful. Abundant food implies a temperate climate.

Elephants. The elephant, which is closely related to the mammoth, lives in tropical or temperate regions, not the Arctic. It requires a climate that ranges from warm to hot, and “it gets a stomach ache if the temperature drops close to freezing.” Newborn elephants are susceptible to pneumonia and must be kept warm and dry. Hannibal crossed the Alps with 37 elephants; the cold weather killed all but one.

Water. If mammoths lived in an Arctic climate, their drinking water in the winter must have come from eating snow or ice. A wild elephant requires 30–60 gallons of water each day. The heat needed to melt snow or ice and warm it to body temperature would consume about half a typical elephant’s calories. The mammoth’s long, vulnerable trunk would bear much of this thermal (melting) stress. Nursing elephants require about 25% more water.

Salt. How would a mammoth living in an Arctic climate satisfy its large salt appetite? Elephants dig for salt using their sharp tusks. In rock-hard permafrost this would be almost impossible, summer or winter, especially with curved tusks.

Nearby Plants and Animals. The easiest and most accurate way to determine an extinct animal’s or plant’s environment is to identify familiar animals and plants buried nearby. For the mammoth, this includes rhinoceroses, tigers, horses, antelope, bison, and temperate species of grasses. All live in warm climates. Some burrowing animals are frozen, such as voles, which would not burrow in rock-hard permafrost. Even larvae of the warble fly have been found in a frozen mammoth’s intestine—larvae identical to those found in tropical elephants today. No one argues that animals and plants buried near the mammoths were adapted to the Arctic. Why do so for mammoths?

Temperature. The average January temperature in northeastern Siberia is about -28°F (60°F below freezing)! During the Ice Age, it was even colder. The long, slender trunk of the mammoth was particularly vulnerable to cold weather. A six-foot-long nose could not survive even one cold night, let alone an eight-month-long Siberian winter or a sudden cold snap. For the more slender trunk of a young mammoth, the heat loss would be more deadly. An elephant usually dies if its trunk is seriously injured.

No Winter Sunlight. Cold temperatures are one problem, but six months of little sunlight during Arctic winters is quite another. While some claim that mammoths were adapted to the cold environment of Siberia and Alaska, vegetation, adapted or not, does not grow during the months-long Arctic night. In those regions today, vegetation is covered by snow and ice ten months each year. Mammoths had to eat voraciously. Elephants in the wild spend about 16 hours a day foraging for food in relatively lush environments, summer and winter.

Three Problems. Before examining other facts, we can see three curious problems. First, northern Siberia today is cold, dry, and desolate. Vegetation does not grow during dark Arctic winters. How could millions of mammoths and other animals, such as rhinoceroses, horses, bison, and antelope, feed themselves? But if their environment were more temperate and moist, why did it change?

Second, the well-preserved mammoths and rhinoceroses must have been completely frozen soon after death or their soft internal parts would have quickly decomposed. Guthrie has written that an unopened animal continues to decompose long after a fresh kill, even in very cold temperatures, because its internal heat can sustain microbial and enzyme activity as long as the carcass is completely covered with an insulating pelt. Because mammoths had such large reservoirs of body heat, the freezing temperatures must have been extremely low.

Finally, their bodies were buried and protected from predators, including birds and insects. Such burials could not have occurred if the ground were perpetually frozen as it is today. Again, this implies a major climate change, but now we can see that it must have changed dramatically and suddenly. How were these huge animals quickly frozen and buried—almost exclusively in muck, a dark soil containing decomposed animal and vegetable matter?

Muck. Muck is a major geological mystery. It covers one-seventh of the earth’s land surface—all surrounding the Arctic Ocean. Muck occupies treeless, generally flat terrain, with no surrounding mountains from which the muck could have eroded. Russian geologists have drilled through 4,000 feet of this muck without hitting solid rock. Where did so much eroded material come from? What eroded it?

Oil prospectors, drilling through Alaskan muck, have “brought up an 18-inch-long chunk of tree trunk from almost 1,000 feet below the surface. It wasn’t petrified—just frozen.” The nearest forests are hundreds of miles away.

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