The last population of woolly mammoths known to science was located on Wrangel Island, an isolated Arctic island north of Siberia. According to a new study, it originated from a maximum of 8-10 individuals around 10,000 years ago. The initial bottleneck, according to the study, was not the mammoths' cause of demise.
Despite the initial bottleneck, the mammoth population grew to around 200-300 individuals within 600 years and remained stable for about 6,000 years before going extinct rapidly, likely due to a catastrophic event such as disease, natural disaster, or a combination of factors.
Genetic analysis suggests that accumulated harmful mutations, inherited genetic diseases, or low genetic diversity were not the primary causes of their extinction, as harmful mutations were gradually weeded out over generations through natural selection or mate choice.
Further analysis of genomic samples from some of the very last woolly mammoths is planned to better understand the cause of their extinction, which remains a mystery and was unlikely due to human involvement.
Sources: Ars Technica, Smithsonian Magazine, Forbes, The New York Times, The Guardian, Popular Science, Die Welt, The Economist, El País, Science News, Discover Magazine, Gizmodo , New Scientist, Yahoo News, Folha de S.Paulo, Liberty Times, El Mundo, La Vanguardia, Diario UNO.
This article was written in collaboration with Generative AI news company Alchemiq.
