The Last Mammoth

Well, perhaps not the last last, but a fascinating study of one mammoth in the twilight of the species.

We are so far away from having another ice age at this point, that we can only look back at the last one with wonder. And one of its major wonders was that there were mammoths. One of many megafauna species, mammoths reigned through millions of years, weathering a dynamic climate of ice ages and integlacial periods with ease. Yet the arrival of humans spelled their doom. A recent paper in Science discussed the fate of one mammoth, based on atomic /isotopic analysis of its tusks and teeth, telling us where it was born, roamed, and died. 

Ice ages come and go, but something unusual caused the extinction of innumerable megafauna after the last one.

The remains of this mammoth were found north of the Brooks Range in Alaska. Tusks are teeth that grow continuously through life, so the length of a tusk represents a chronological sequence of deposition, which these researchers analyzed for strontium, oxygen, and other isotope ratios, which reflect the animal's diet and thus its location, since these ratios differ across the landscape. In this case, they were able to guess that this mammoth was born well south of the Brooks Range, around the middle Yukon river. It then spent its youth roaming the area, out to what is now the pacific coast, and eventually inland as well to what is now Fairbanks. At some point it ranged north as well, above the Brooks Range. Finally, in what the researchers surmise was a late spring in its ~28th year, this mammoth succumbed to old age just north of the Brooks range and gave us its almost complete remains.  

Figure describing the haunts of one late Pleistocene mammoth, from strontium isotopes in its tusks. The black lines are "best walks" between the various isotope identified site, and somewhat fanciful idea of how this mammoth may have ranged through its life.

It is fascinating to have such an intimate look into the life history of such a distant and mysterious creature, which clearly ranged freely and widely. But it was not really the last mammoth, living 17,000 years ago when populations were robust and humans had only begun to encroach on its realm. No, the last mammoth remains are thought to be those of St. Paul island in the middle of the Bering sea (far lower left white dot in the accompanying map), dating to about 5,600 years ago. Why an island? Well, that is clearly because they had been hunted down everwhere else, leaving only isolated populations stranded after the sea level rise ending the last ice age flooded the rest of the Bering land mass.

Humans have been causing ecological catastrophe for a very long time. But with climate change, we are operating on an entirely new scale of lethality to the biosphere. It may have begun with charismatic megafauna, but whole ecosytems are now in the crosshairs.

• Lesson from Afghanistan.. more guns? Or perhaps that is just how our domestic Taliban views things.
• Three cheers for the Taliban- from Pakistan, of course.
• It is like saying Gerald Ford lost Vietnam.
• Next up, protecting our precious bodily fluids.
• Fighting the good fight.
• Evolution? Yes.