How Mammoths Lost The Extinction Lottery

Nature ^ | November 2, 2011 | Ewen Callaway

[SunkenCiv]

Woolly mammoths, woolly rhinos and other large animals driven to extinction since the last ice age each succumbed to a different lethal mix of circumstances...

Researchers who studied the fate of six species of 'megafauna' over the past 50,000 years found that climate change and habitat loss were involved in many of the extinctions, with humans playing a part in some cases but not others. But there was no clear pattern to explain why the animals died off, and it proved impossible to predict from habitat or genetic diversity which species would go extinct and which would survive.

"It almost seems like it's a random process," says Eske Willerslev, a palaeo-geneticist at the University of Copenhagen who led the study published online today in Nature1. "If you ran the whole experiment again, we would have woolly mammoths and no reindeer, so Santa would drag his sleigh with woolly mammoths."

...Some scientists, noting that modern humans were spreading throughout the world around this time, envisaged a blitzkrieg in which technologically savvy people hunted these animals to extinction. The end of an ice age and the habitat changes it wrought led other researchers to lay the blame on climate...

The researchers created a series of snapshots of the European, Asian and North American ranges of these animals (drawn from climate records and hundreds of fossils) and a rough approximation of their population size (based on ancient mitochondrial DNA sequences) between 42,000 and 6,000 thousand years ago...

The team found no way to predict the future extinction of a species, based on either an animal's genetic diversity or the size of its range.

[Publius6961]

Another complex and sophisticated, but nevertheless spurious GIGO exercise.
Garbage In, Garbage Out...

[CT]

Try the flooding of Lake Missoula and creation of the Columbia Gorge as one reason the Columbia wooly mamoth may have been wiped out. That was one epic (actually several) flood. Sixty MPH, and 200+ feet above current river levels. Boulders so large they were carried to the Oregon Coast Range.

[Ramius]

I wouldn’t be surprised. There’s an astonishing amount of mammoth ivory raw material available. Especially now that other forms of ivory are largely illegal, and mammoth tusks keep being found all over the artic in the U.S., Canada and Russia... It may not be exactly plentiful, but it is available. If you want a set of mammoth ivory grips for your Colt 1911... They can be found without much trouble.

The big difference is the quality of the ivory. Most of the mammoth ivory is yellowed, or has harsh grain, stains, and lots of marking in it. Dark stripes from cracks are common. What attracted me to the knife was the pure white ivory. In mammoth ivory I’ve seen, that’s fairly uncommon. That tells me they had a pretty special sample from which to make their handles.

[Ramius]

Are you talking about the flood from the break of the ice dam? If you’ve ever been to “dry falls” in WA, they figure that the canyon downstream of dry falls was formed all at once... Maybe a period of three or so DAYS, after the ice dam finally broke.

Amazing stuff.

[martin_fierro]

Chunky Soup indeed.

[EEGator]

It sounds like a pretty sweet knife.

[PIF]

There are two theoretical possibilities for flash freezing 6-10 ton beasties:

Velokovski's close approach of the protoplanet Venus (He correctly predicted both the temperature and composition of Venus’ atmosphere before any probes were sent. The prevailing view at that time was that Venus was a warmer version of Earth).

and;

The Northern Ice Cap had massive freshwater lakes - think the Great Lakes super sized - which collapsed into the warmer oceans sending water vapor into the stratosphere, which then fell back to Earth supercooled, flash freezing the beasts.

Theories abound, but none can be verified, currently.

[SunkenCiv]

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• Remains of 60th mammoth found in Hot Springs; Mammoth Site could hold as many as 100
• Scientists reveal a first in Ice Age art
• Protein from Bones of 600,000-Year-Old Mammoth Extracted Successfully
• Researchers solve mammoth evolutionary puzzle: The woollies weren't picky, happy to interbreed
• West Runton Elephant helps unlock the past
• Mammoth remains discovered near Castroville
• Archeologists Say They've Found Mammoth Bones in Monterey County (California)
• The earliest rock art engraving of an American mammoth?
• Did the ancient Egyptians know of pygmy mammoths? Well, there is that tomb painting.
• Researchers aim to resurrect Mammoth in five years
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• Mammoth 'could be reborn in four years'
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• African elephant is two species, researchers say
• Dozer Driver Makes Fossil Discovery of the Century
• Next stop France for oldest baby mammoth
• Mammoth Blood Brought Back to Life with Ancient DNA
• Saranac golf course the site of mammoth excavation [Michigan]
• Scientists use 'Jurassic Park' experiment to try to bring woolly mammoth back from the dead
• Mammoth iceberg could alter ocean circulation: study
• Lost World Shropshire? Mammoths In England Found To Be Most Recent Yet
• University of Florida: Epic carving on fossil bone found in Vero Beach
• News to Note, May 2, 2009: A weekly feature examining news from the biblical viewpoint
• Waking the Baby Mammoth
• Japan scientists clone legendary bull (Mammoths next?)
• Six North American sites hold 12,900-year-old nanodiamond-rich soil
• Cloned Mammoths Made More Likely by Frozen Mice
• Neanderthals Conquered Mammoths, Why Not Us?
• Volunteers uncovers 58th Mammoth at the Mammoth Site (Hot Springs, SD)
• "Lyuba" Gives Scientists Glimpse Of Mammoth Insides
• Climate Change And Human Hunting Combine To Drive The Woolly Mammoth Extinct
• Trade in mammoth ivory, helped by global thaw, flourishes in Russia
• Cause Of Death Of Russian Baby Mammoth Discovered
• The Mystery Of Mammoth Tusks With Iron Fillings
• Mammoth Hunters' Camp Site Found In Russia's Far East (15KYA)
• Ancient drawing of mammoth found in Cheddar caves
• Site Provides Evidence For Ancient Comet Explosion (Topper - SC)
• Mammoth graveyard may someday be open to public
• Mammoth Discovery
• Freep a Poll! (CNN. Should scientists clone a mammoth if DNA available?)
• Frozen baby mammoth to be sent to Japan for research(near-perfect preservation: photo)
• Mammoths to Return? DNA Advances Spur Resurrection Debate
• 35,000-Year --Old Mammoth Sculpture Found In Germany
• Ancient DNA Traces The Wooly Mammoth's Disappearance
• Experts doubt Clovis people were first in Americas
• Fla. teen stumbles upon mammoth tooth
• Site Yields Up Clues To The Ancient Past
• Mammoth bones found, reburied
• Mammoths may roam again after 27,000 years
• Ice Age DNA May Now Be Sequenced
• Mammoths may roam again after 27,000 years
• Mammoths may roam again after 27,000 years
• Mammoths may roam again after 27,000 years
• Cambridge Scholar Makes Rare 30,000-Year-Old Find
• Disgraced Embryonic Stem Cell Researcher Used Money to Clone Mammoths
• Cranbrook officials eager to share mastodon find [ Rochester Hills ]
• Gene Reveals Mammoth Coat Colour
• 2,300-Year-Old Artefacts May Change Ashoka-Buddhist History
• Mammoth Skeleton Found In Siberia
• Moose, not men, blamed for mammoth extinction
• Climate killed off mammoths, not humans: scientist
• Humor: Airbus to build seven story airliner
• Mammoth meals helped early tribes thrive
• Mammoth Findings: Asian Elephant Is Closest Living Kin
• Woolly mammoth genome comes to life (Jurassic Park, here we come)
• Mammoth plan for giant comeback
• Extinct mammoth DNA decoded
• Supernova Storm Wiped Out Mammoths?
• Mammoth's remains found at homes' construction site(12Ft Fossil far too ancient for carbon dating)
• Mammoth remains unearthed in California (SoCal - Moorpark)
• Mammoths stranded on Bering Sea island delayed extinction
• Mammoth Herds 'Roamed Fertile Bering Strait In Ice Age'
• Ancient dung reveals a picture of the past
• Scientists find mammoth cell fit for cloning
• DNA scholars hope to stock Siberia 'park' with mammoths
• Mammoth Cooking Again?
• What killed the mammoths and other behemoths?

[SunkenCiv]

That didn’t work, but I love that page already.

[SunkenCiv]

from “Earth in Upheaval” (p 3)

High in the north above Siberia, six hundred miles inside the Polar Circle, in the Arctic Ocean, lie the Liakhov Islands. Liakhov was a hunter who, in the days of Catherine II, ventured to these islands and brought back the report that they abounded in mammoths’ bones. “Such was the enormous quantity of mammoths’ remains that it seemed . . . that the island was actually composed of the bones and tusks of elephants, cemented together by icy sand.” 3

The New Siberian Islands, discovered in 1805 and 1806, as well as the islands of Stolbovoi and Belkov to the west, present the same picture. “The soil of these desolate islands is absolutely packed full of the bones of elephants and rhinoceroses in astonishing numbers.” 4

[PIF]

Yeah, read most everything Velokovski wrote, but thanks.

[martin_fierro]

How you like me NOW.

[SunkenCiv]

This could be a good Catastrophism list ping as well, so, thanks. :’)

[SunkenCiv]

$10 a can, not bad.

[PIF]

Ping me for both, and you are welcome!

[wildbill]

saw a show on cable the other day that posited a theory I hadn’t heard before.

The climte change enabled many different species and related members of similar species to wander onto territories where they had not previously existed.

This intermingling esposed them to germs to which they had not previously been exposed, killing whole populations of larger species from disease.

[SunkenCiv]

That’s a nice story, but there’s no discernable evidence of a disease in the last mammoths. There is however evidence for sudden extinction. Yes, there were some isolated populations (dwarfed) which persisted until perhaps 2000 years ago, and the Earth can only show one face to the incoming space crud which was found embedded in the tusks of the last North American mammoths. :’)

[Sawdring]

My folks just gave my son a book called "Dinosaurs for Kids," a creationist theory about how dinosaurs lived and eventually died out. My boy is five and I don't want to have to explain to him the mental gymnastics this author has to do to come up with his theories. There is even a picture of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden with an apple and surrounded by dinosaurs.

[SunkenCiv]

There are other dino books he could also enjoy. :’)

[KamperKen]

This is Robert Bakker’s theory in his 1985 book “The Dinosaur Heresies”. Bakker notes that the mass extinctions at the end of the Cretaceous period did not occur at once but over a period of several million years.

Bakker speculated that because of continental drift historically isolated populations came into contact and thus succumbed to new diseases.

It’s not surprising that the climate change doomsayers borrowed his theory.