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Posted on 05/29/2026 3:50:47 PM PDT by Libloather
Is it free woolly?
Scientists were flabbergasted after discovering that the mammoth backbones that had been housed in an Alaskan museum for 70 years actually belonged to a whale, per a study published in the Journal of Quaternary Science.
This archaeological case of mistaken identity began way back in the 1950s, when archaeologist Otto Geist happened upon some bones while traveling through the Alaskan interior, roughly 10 miles North of Fairbanks in a region formerly known as Beringia, The Smithsonian Magazine reported.
He assumed the remnants, a pair of growth plates, belonged to the plush pachyderm mammoth based on their size and the fact that they were found in a region known for producing megafauna fossils.
The area had previously yielded the remains of mammoths, bison and other creatures dating to the Late Pleistocene.
Geist subsequently transported the items to the University of Alaska’s Museum of the North.
They remained archived there for seven decades under the wrong label until an investigation by the institution blew the lid off this whale of a “tail.”
Through radiocarbon dating, the museum determined that the backbone fossils were between 2,000 and 3,000 years old. That was far too young for a mammoth, which went extinct 10,000 years ago — although some populations held out for 6,000 more years.
If the bones did belong to the tufty tusker, they’d be by far the youngest fossils ever found, wrote University of Alaska Fairbanks biogeochemist Matthew Wooller and his team in the study.
Another peculiarity? Carbon and nitrogen analyses revealed that the lusciously locked landlubbers subsisted on marine organisms.
Hoping to solve this paleontological caper, the fossil sleuths conducted DNA testing on the remains, only to discover that they belonged to two different species of whales: a minke whale and a North Pacific right whale.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
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It is not a mistake.
It proves evolution
When Whales had short legs and walked on land ? LOL
Shouldn't that be tail of a whale? 😁🤙
The science is settled. Don’t question the science.
Sometimes, a bone is a bone, is a bone.
How did bones from two whales get to within 10 miles of Fairbanks?? Or was the scientist telling a fib?
Interesting.
Over time I’ve come to wonder about this particular discipline in terms of the fanciful things they come up with from very limited samples.
Just a guess. ;~))
I guess nobody there was a marine biologist.
She’s not fat! She’s Megafauna! *SMIRK*
How this effects the Hot/Crazy Matrix Scale is probably the MOST most important thing we’ve learned from the ‘scientists,’ today! LOL!
“Tufted tusker”.
Lol...
Finally. An article that gets to the point.
I don't think you understand the meaning of extinct.
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"I don't think you understand the meaning of extinct."
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I have no idea what that could possibly mean.
If mammoths went extinct 10,000 years ago, that means they were all dead. No more mammoths. But in the same sentence the author said some lived for 6,000 more years so they weren’t extinct until then. It’s like someone telling his doctor he’s eating healthily — except for the half gallon of ice cream he eats daily. The first phrase is immediately denied by the second.
Not so wooly after all.
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