Science and technology | Palaeontology
How the last mammoths went extinct
Small genetic mutations accumulated through inbreeding may have made them vulnerable to disease
The woolly mammoths of Wrangel island were survivors. Trapped on a hunk of rock in the Arctic Ocean after rising sea levels cut them off from present-day Siberia, they were the last of their species to go extinct. Palaeontology textbooks have explained their eventual demise around 4,000 years ago as a classic case of extinction through inbreeding, in which severely damaging genetic mutations spread through an isolated population and kill it off. New work published in Cell , a journal, on June 27th reveals that the textbooks are wrong.
More from Science and technology
Freeze-dried chromosomes can survive for thousands of years
They contain unprecedented detail about their long-dead parent organisms
Researchers are figuring out how large language models work
Such insights could help make them safer, more truthful and easier to use
A scientific discovery could lead to leak-free period products
Polymers from algae can turn menstrual blood into a gel