Posted on 07/04/2015 1:40:42 PM PDT by BenLurkin
It will definitely be possible within the foreseeable future to bring back the long-extinct woolly mammoth, a top geneticist has said. However, in his regretful opinion such a resurrection should not be carried out.
The assertion comes in the wake of a new study of mammoth genetics as compared to their cousins the Asian and African elephants, which live in warm habitats very different from the icy northern realms of the woolly giant.
The new study offers boffins many revelations as to the differences which let the elephants and mammoths survive in such different conditions.
“This is by far the most comprehensive study to look at the genetic changes that make a woolly mammoth a woolly mammoth,” said genetics prof Vincent Lynch.
“They are an excellent model to understand how morphological evolution works, because mammoths are so closely related to living elephants, which have none of the traits they had," he added.
(Excerpt) Read more at theregister.co.uk ...
By his logic extinction is nature’s way of saying “Time to say goodby.”
I say bring ‘em back! Stick ‘me in Alaska and Canada. Plenty of cold weather there.
In the book, the Mammoth Hunters, they ate a mammoth and the description sounded so good I have always thought of that delicious meal every time I read of a mammoth.
I would agree, but I think that it’s fairly obvious that our ancestors definitely “helped them out” in that area quite a bit. They would probably do fine in Alaska and Canada.
The result would have been that the particular grassy tundra needed by Ice Age megafauna would have died before it could move south far enough to sustain the megafauna ecosystem.
A few pygmy mammoths survived until about 3000 years ago on arctic islands in the Russian far north.
I see nothing wrong with having a few on exhibit in a large gated area. Set free in the wild?, NO.
Dude, I got news for ya.
If you don’t,
the Chinese WILL!
(not to poster, to author)
The alignment of the Carolina Bays seems to point at an area a bit south and a bit west of Lake Superior.
IIRC.
Believe it or not, pigmy mammoths also survived quite late on Catalina Island off the California coast. The time period I’ve read was up to about 4,000 to 5,000 years ago. They were related to the Colombian mammoths who lived across Norh America and into Central America. People forget that not all mammoths were woolly!
PinGGG..............
Make that Columbian mammoths!
Thank you, the most cogent theory of the death of all mega fauna presented, it wasn’t just the mammoths. I have never believed hunters were responsible or contributed in any way, more PC junk science. I personally stumbled upon a mammoth hunters knife and thumb scraper several years back while hunting. To hold such artifacts in ones own hands took me back to a time when my area was very much different, I could almost feel their past presence. Hunters are so politically non correct in this era, not so in many past cultures.
Last I had seen it was near the St. Lawrence: in either case, it probably would have opened a channel for the Great Lakes (swollen with melt water) to drain into the Arctic or North Atlantic, seriously disrupting the heat exchange mechanism of the Gulf Stream.
I have hunted ( and found) arrowheads and other stone tools in south Texas. I always have the same thoughts about the ones who made them as you do.
They could not have imagined the world as it is today.
Or, for that matter, in Mongolia. A full 25% of the land mass of the earth is habitable ground for such cold loving beasts.
By all means, bring them back. Let us all witness their grandeur before we die.
Well, they do take up a lot of room.
Thanks Red Badger.
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