St Paul Mammoths Went Extinct 5,600 Years ago

While the Minoan culture on Crete was just beginning, woolly mammoths were disappearing from St. Paul Island, Alaska, according to an international team of scientists who have dated this extinction to 5,600 years ago.

"It's amazing that everything turned out so precisely with dating of extinction at 5,600 plus or minus 100 years," said Russell Graham, professor of geosciences, Penn State."

St. Paul Island lies about 400 miles north of the Aleutian Islands and was part of the Bering Land Bridge before sea level rose when the last glacial period ended. Previous researchers radiocarbon-dated remains of five mammoths to about 6,480 years ago, but there was no way to know if these were the last five animals.

The researchers used a variety of proxies to date the demise of the mammoths on the island. Proxies are things in the environment that can be used to independently document the presence of an organism, even though they are not parts of it. In this study, three different spores from fungi that grow on large animal dung were extracted from lake cores and used to determine when the mammoths were no longer on the island. Proxies in sediments from cores from a lake near the cave were used to determine the time of the demise of the mammoth population.

link.

Eurybelodon shoshanii: a new Unusual Shovel-tusked Gomphothere From Miocene Neogene Oregon

Eurybelodon shoshanii, an unusual new shovel-tusked gomphothere (Mammalia, Proboscidea) from the late Miocene of Oregon

Author:

Lambert

Abstract:

Unusual shovel-tusked gomphothere material from the late Clarendonian Black Butte Local Fauna (Juntura Formation, Oregon), including a lower tusk, partial upper tusk, and two mandibles including a second and a third molar, has been described and referred to Platybelodon. Platybelodon has the following diagnostic characteristics: molars strongly double-trefoiled; third molar with five lophs; lower tusks short with broad and very flat profiles lacking significant dorsoventral curvature; and lower tusks lacking obvious lamination but instead filled with small, short dentinal rods. However, the Black Butte shovel-tusked gomphothere was referred to Platybelodon despite having the following conflicting features: molars with weakly developed single trefoiling; third molar with only four lophids (the fourth little more than a talonid); broad, moderately flattened, relatively elongated lower tusk with strong dorsal curvature; and lower tusk internal structure showing lamination rather than dentinal rods. In addition, both the upper and lower tusks of the Black Butte shovel-tusker have prominently corrugated enamel cortices, a feature unknown in any other gomphothere. Thus, given the lack of a single clear-cut shared diagnostic feature and the large number of differences between these taxa, the identification of the Black Butte shovel-tusker as Platybelodon must be refuted. Refutation of the Platybelodon identification requires an alternate identification to be made for the Black Butte shovel-tusker. No other known shovel-tusker genus, including the genera Amebelodon, Serbelodon, and Torynobelodon, possesses the unusual combination of tusk and cheek tooth features observed in this animal. Accordingly, it is here referred to a new genus and species, Eurybelodon shoshanii.

Mammoth Evolution and Dispersal Across the Northern Hemisphere

Evolution and dispersal of mammoths across the Northern Hemisphere

Authors:

Lister et al

Abstract:

le of species origins and dispersal, but understanding has been impeded by taxonomic confusion, especially in North America. The Columbian mammoth Mammuthus columbi was thought to have evolved in North America from a more primitive Eurasian immigrant. The earliest American mammoths (1.5 million years ago), however, resemble the advanced Eurasian M. trogontherii that crossed the Bering land bridge around that time, giving rise directly to M. columbi. Woolly mammoth M. primigenius later evolved in Beringia and spread into Europe and North America, leading to a diversity of morphologies as it encountered endemic M. trogontherii and M. columbi, respectively. In North America, this included intermediates (“M. jeffersonii”), suggesting introgression of M. primigenius with M. columbi. The lineage illustrates the dynamic interplay of local adaptation, dispersal, and gene flow in the evolution of a widely distributed species complex.

The Mammoths of Wrangel island

Evolution: The Island of Misfit Mammoths

Author:

Roca

Summary:

The genomes of two woolly mammoths have been sequenced. One of the last survivors had reduced genetic diversity. Although divergent in their mitochondrial genomes, the mammoths had similar nuclear genomes, a finding germane to elephant conservation.

One Small Step to a Woolly Mammoth: Genome Fully Sequence, Cold Adaptions IDed

Elephantid Genomes Reveal the Molecular Bases of Woolly Mammoth Adaptations to the Arctic

Authors:

Lynch et al

Abstract:

Woolly mammoths and living elephants are characterized by major phenotypic differences that have allowed them to live in very different environments. To identify the genetic changes that underlie the suite of woolly mammoth adaptations to extreme cold, we sequenced the nuclear genome from three Asian elephants and two woolly mammoths, and we identified and functionally annotated genetic changes unique to woolly mammoths. We found that genes with mammoth-specific amino acid changes are enriched in functions related to circadian biology, skin and hair development and physiology, lipid metabolism, adipose development and physiology, and temperature sensation. Finally, we resurrected and functionally tested the mammoth and ancestral elephant TRPV3 gene, which encodes a temperature-sensitive transient receptor potential (thermoTRP) channel involved in thermal sensation and hair growth, and we show that a single mammoth-specific amino acid substitution in an otherwise highly conserved region of the TRPV3 channel strongly affects its temperature sensitivity.

The Last Woolly Mammoths on Wrangel Island Circa 2,300 BC Were Very Inbred

Before the world's last woolly mammoth took its final breath, the iconic animals had already suffered from a considerable loss of genetic diversity. These findings, based on a comparison of the first complete genome sequences isolated from two ancient mammoth specimens, are reported in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on April 23.

One of those mammoths, representing the last population on Russia's Wrangel Island, is estimated to have lived about 4,300 years ago. The other specimen, from northeastern Siberia, is about 44,800 years old. The younger of the two specimens showed much lower genetic variation, including large stretches of DNA with no variation whatsoever - the mark of living in a very small population in which related individuals unavoidably mate with each other.

"We found that the genome from one of the world's last mammoths displayed low genetic variation and a signature consistent with inbreeding, likely due to the small number of mammoths that managed to survive on Wrangel Island during the last 5,000 years of the species' existence," says Love Dalén of the Swedish Museum of Natural History.

link.

How to Tell What Proboscideans (Elephants and Paleo Relatives) ate Based on Tooth Wear

A new tooth wear-based dietary analysis method for Proboscidea (Mammalia)

Authors:

Saarinen et al

Abstract:

Dietary analyses of herbivorous mammals are important for paleoecological reconstruction. Several methods applicable to fossil teeth have been developed lately. The mesowear method based on wear-induced occlusal shape and relief of ungulate molars has proven to be a robust method for dietary analysis. In its original form it can only be used for selenodont, plagiolophodont, and ectolophodont ungulate molars, but the principle can be extended to other kinds of tooth morphology. We introduce a new method of dietary analysis for proboscideans similar to the mesowear method, based on angle measurements from worn dentin valleys reflecting the relief of enamel ridges. The enamel ridges should be heavily worn when the abrasiveness of diet increases, resulting in lower occlusal relief and larger angles. For testing this, we compared the mesowear angles with stable carbon isotope values from dental enamel from populations of extant and fossil species from localities from Kenya and India. This enables us to compare diet and tooth wear in proboscideans, because the stable carbon isotope ratios in tropical environments provide a reliable standard for assessing the relative amounts of C4 and C3 plants in diet, and most of the C4 plants are grasses, which should be reflected in the mesowear signal.

Harvard Geneticist Inserts Woolly Mammoth Genes Into Elephant Cells Using CRISPR

Researchers from Harvard University have successfully inserted genes from a woolly mammoth into living cells from an Asian elephant, the extinct giant's closest remaining relative.

Harvard geneticist George Church used DNA from Arctic permafrost woolly mammoth samples to copy 14 mammoth genes -- emphasizing those related to its chilly lifestyle.

"We prioritized genes associated with cold resistance including hairiness, ear size, subcutaneous fat and, especially, hemoglobin," Church told The Sunday Times.

Then, using a kind of DNA cut/paste system called CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat), Church dropped the genes into Asian elephant skin cells.

The result? A petri dish of elephant cells functioning normally with mammoth DNA in them, marking the first time mammoth genes have been on the job since the creature went extinct some 4,000 years ago, as Sarah Fecht, from Popular Science, noted.

link.

Evolution of Basal "Elephant" Protanancus in East Asia

Evolution of Protoanancus (Proboscidea, Mammalia) in East Asia

Authors:

Wang et al

Abstract:

Interspecific competition and species replacement explain many evolutionary successions, but these processes are difficult to test. According to recent paleontological research, amebelodontines were predominant proboscideans in faunas of the early to middle Miocene of East Asia. In addition to the abundant Platybelodon, other amebelodontines are known, but they have been largely neglected by researchers. Here we describe two species of Protanancus, Pr. tobieni and Pr. brevirostris, sp. nov., from China. The former was present during the middle Miocene in Tongxin and Qin’an and was previously attributed to Amebelodon or Serbelodon; the latter was present during the early Miocene in the Linxia Basin. Cladistic analysis indicates that the two species appear to represent primitive members of Protanancus. However, the phylogenetic relationship among Protanancus, Platybelodon, and Amebelodon remains unresolved because of their strong parallel evolution. Our study suggests intensive competition between Protanancus and Platybelodon based on similarities in their mandibular morphologies and dental microwear patterns, with the former genus disappearing from East Asia by the late middle Miocene. This scenario is supported by a mechanical model, in which lower tusks with dentinal tubules, as occur in Platybelodon, show greater resistance to the adverse effects of both a heavy load and abrasion than those with concentric laminae, present in Protanancus. The model aids in interpreting the evolution of the inner structure of the lower tusks of amebelodontines, which may have provided a competitive advantages for these species.

American Mastodon Went Locally Extinct in Alaska Prior to Climate Change or Human Presence During Pleistocene Quaternary

American mastodon extirpation in the Arctic and Subarctic predates human colonization and terminal Pleistocene climate change

Authors:

Zazula et al

Abstract:

Existing radiocarbon (14C) dates on American mastodon (Mammut americanum) fossils from eastern Beringia (Alaska and Yukon) have been interpreted as evidence they inhabited the Arctic and Subarctic during Pleistocene full-glacial times (∼18,000 14C years B.P.). However, this chronology is inconsistent with inferred habitat preferences of mastodons and correlative paleoecological evidence. To establish a last appearance date (LAD) for M. americanum regionally, we obtained 53 new 14C dates on 36 fossils, including specimens with previously published dates. Using collagen ultrafiltration and single amino acid (hydroxyproline) methods, these specimens consistently date to beyond or near the ∼50,000 y B.P. limit of 14C dating. Some erroneously “young” 14C dates are due to contamination by exogenous carbon from natural sources and conservation treatments used in museums. We suggest mastodons inhabited the high latitudes only during warm intervals, particularly the Last Interglacial [Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 5] when boreal forests existed regionally. Our 14C dataset suggests that mastodons were extirpated from eastern Beringia during the MIS 4 glacial interval (∼75,000 y ago), following the ecological shift from boreal forest to steppe tundra. Mastodons thereafter became restricted to areas south of the continental ice sheets, where they suffered complete extinction ∼10,000 14C years B.P. Mastodons were already absent from eastern Beringia several tens of millennia before the first humans crossed the Bering Isthmus or the onset of climate changes during the terminal Pleistocene. Local extirpations of mastodons and other megafaunal populations in eastern Beringia were asynchrononous and independent of their final extinction south of the continental ice sheets.

Shovel-tusker Proboscidean Konobelodon Present in Miocene Neogene Greece

The Eurasian occurrence of the shovel-tusker Konobelodon (Mammalia, Proboscidea) as illuminated by its presence in the late Miocene of Pikermi (Greece)

Authors:

Konidaris et al

Abstract:

Presented here are the tetralophodont proboscidean remains from the late Miocene locality Pikermi (Attica, Greece). The study of the Pikermi tetralophodons and their comparison with other relevant specimens revealed that the late Miocene species ‘Tetralophodon’ atticus and ‘Mastodon’ grandincisivus are synonymous. The morphological characters of the Pikermi specimens, as well as of those attributed to ‘Mastodon’ grandincisivus, are consistent with the North American shovel-tusker Amebelodon (Konobelodon). However, generic rank revision of Konobelodon at generic rank is deemed appropriate. The observed differences between the type species Konobelodon britti and the Pikermi tetralophodon indicate that the latter belongs to a distinct species, Konobelodon atticus. This species encompasses the Turolian tetralophodont shovel-tuskers from eastern Europe–western Asia. The paleogeographic distribution and biostratigraphy of Konobelodon atticus are discussed, as well as the evolution and the possible migrational scenarios of Konobelodon.

30,000 Year Old Mastodon Fossils Found on White Sands Missile Range

Remnants of another prehistoric elephant-like creature have been found in southern New Mexico.

White Sands Missile Range recently announced the discovery of a fossilized mastodon skeleton on the expansive military installation between Las Cruces and Alamogordo.

The mastodon fossil, dubbed "Chompers" by its discoverers, could have lived up to 30,000 years ago, based on preliminary information, an expert said.

The mastodon was first found in January in the foothills of the San Andres Mountains to the west of U.S. 70. But scientists at the time weren't able to explore it. A second team of experts in July carried out a five-day trip to the site to gather more information and stabilize it for a future excavation.

link.

Mammoths, Mastodons From Ohio did *NOT* Migrate

Their scruffy beards weren't ironic, but there are reasons mammoths and mastodons could have been the hipsters of the Ice Age.

According to research from the University of Cincinnati, the famously fuzzy relatives of elephants liked living in Greater Cincinnati long before it was trendy – at the end of the last ice age. A study led by Brooke Crowley, an assistant professor of geology and anthropology, shows the ancient proboscideans enjoyed the area so much they likely were year-round residents and not nomadic migrants as previously thought.

They even had their own preferred hangouts. Crowley's findings indicate each species kept to separate areas based on availability of favored foods here at the southern edge of the Last Glacial Maximum's major ice sheet.

"I suspect that this was a pretty nice place to live, relatively speaking," Crowley says. "Our data suggest that animals probably had what they needed to survive here year-round."

[...]

Mammoths ate more grasses and sedges than mastodons, which favored leaves from trees or shrubs.

Strontium from all of the animals (except one mastodon) matched local water samples, meaning they likely were less mobile and migratory than previously thought.

Differences in strontium and carbon between mammoths and mastodons suggest they didn't inhabit the same localities.

Mammoths preferred to be closer to the retreating ice sheet where grasses were more abundant, whereas mastodons fed farther from the ice sheet in more forested habitat.

link.

Youngest Gomphothere Site in Mexico (13.4kya) has Clovis Points (yup, they get et too)

An animal once believed to have disappeared from North America before humans ever arrived there might actually have roamed the continent longer than previously thought – and it was likely on the list of prey for some of continent's earliest humans, researchers from the University of Arizona and elsewhere have found.

Archaeologists have discovered artifacts of the prehistoric Clovis culture mingled with the bones of two gomphotheres – an ancient ancestor of the elephant – at an archaeological site in northwestern Mexico.

The discovery suggests that the Clovis – the earliest widespread group of hunter-gatherers to inhabit North America – likely hunted and ate gomphotheres. The members of the Clovis culture were already well-known as hunters of the gomphotheres' cousins, mammoths and mastodons.

Although humans were known to have hunted gomphotheres in Central America and South America, this is the first time a human-gomphothere connection has been made in North America, says archaeologist Vance Holliday, who co-authored a new paper on the findings, published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"This is the first archaeological gomphothere found in North America, and it's the only one known," said Holliday, a professor of anthropology and geology at the UA.

Holliday and colleagues from the U.S. and Mexico began excavating the skeletal remains of two juvenile gomphotheres in 2007 after ranchers alerted them that the bones had been found in northwestern Sonora, Mexico.

They didn't know at first what kind of animal they were dealing with.

"At first, just based on the size of the bone, we thought maybe it was a bison, because the extinct bison were a little bigger than our modern bison," Holliday said.

Then, in 2008, they discovered a jawbone with teeth, buried upside down in the dirt.

"We finally found the mandible, and that's what told the tale," Holliday said.

Gomphotheres were smaller than mammoths – about the same size as modern elephants. They once were widespread in North America, but until now they seemed to have disappeared from the continent's fossil record long before humans arrived in North America, which happened some 13,000 to 13,500 years ago, during the late Ice Age.

However, the bones that Holliday and his colleagues uncovered date back 13,400 years, making them the last known gomphotheres in North America.

The gomphothere remains weren't all Holliday and his colleagues unearthed at the site, which they dubbed El Fin del Mundo – Spanish for The End of the World – because of its remote location.

As their excavation of the bones progressed, they also uncovered numerous Clovis artifacts, including signature Clovis projectile points, or spear tips, as well as cutting tools and flint flakes from stone tool-making. The Clovis culture is so named for its distinctive stone tools, first discovered by archaeologists near Clovis, New Mexico, in the 1930s.

link.

And, yes, I guess it did hold up.

paper link when I see it.

DeExtinction: Efforts at Harvard are Underway to "Bring Back" the Woolly Mammoth

There's a mission to bring back one of history's most famous animals, it's already underway, and it's closer to becoming a reality than even some of the most forward-looking minds think it is.

For all the talk and attention it gets, de-extincting an animal isn't exactly easy—it's difficult to clone cells from an animal that has been dead for thousands of years, tougher to turn it into a viable embryo, and, most importantly, more difficult still to find a closely-related animal that can serve as a surrogate mother to give birth to the cloned animal. There's certainly work still being done in that area, but, increasingly, researchers are working to hybridize existing animals with extinct ones in order to create what Brand calls a "2.0" version of the animal.

That's what Harvard synthetic biologist George Church is doing with woolly mammoths. Using a genome editing technique known as CRISPR, Church is working on inserting three key genes from woolly mammoths into Asian elephant cells, with the hope of eventually creating a hybrid between the two that will ideally be more mammoth-like than elephant-like.

The project and technology has been touched on before, most notably in a lengthy New York Times Magazine article from February, but Church tells me that the team has now successfully migrated the three genes, which gave the woolly mammoth its furry appearance, extra layer of fat, and cold-resistant blood. In theory, given what we know about both the woolly mammoth genome and the Asian elephant genome, the final product will be something that more closely resembles the former than the latter.

link.

(more info)

Climate Set the South American Stage, but Humans Wiped it Clean of Proboscideans

Climate and humans set the place and time of Proboscidean extinction in late Quaternary of South America

Authors:

Lima-Ribeiro et al

Abstract:

The late Quaternary extinctions have been widely debated for a long time, but the varying magnitude of human vs. climate change impacts across time and space is still an unresolved question. Here we assess the geographic range shifts in response to climate change based on Ecological Niche Models (ENMs) and modeled the timing for extinction under human hunting scenario, and both variables were used to explain the extinction dynamics of Proboscideans during a full interglacial/glacial cycle (from 126 ka to 6 ka) in South America. We found a large contraction in the geographic range size of two Proboscidean species studied (Cuvieronius hyodon and Notiomastodon platensis) across time. The largest contractions of their geographical ranges occurred in the northern part of South America, where we previously reported no evidence of coexistence among earliest humans and non-sloth megafauna, including Proboscideans. Our results herein support a strong effect of climatic changes on geographical range dynamics of Proboscideans throughout late Quaternary, although this does not fully support climate change as the single cause of their extinctions. We show that both Proboscideans were narrowly distributed on scattered patches of suitable habitats (i.e., refugia) around 11 ka, period in which the earliest humans potentially arrived in South America, increasing the population density thereafter. Under this overall unsuitable climatic condition at 11 ka, both Proboscideans would be extinct after around 550 years of human hunting, but if climatic conditions were suitable like in Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), the time-for-extinction would be at least 3 times longer under the same human hunting pressures. Thus, our findings support the “Broken Zig-Zag” model and show that South American Proboscideans might have been completely extinct due to human impacts during periods of climate crisis. We conclude, in agreement with an increasing body of evidence in the recent literature, that the late Quaternary megafaunal extinction event was the result of additive effects from different stressors, and that the relative magnitude of these impacts vary across space and time. Indeed, climate changes set the place where the Proboscideans were extinct in South America, whereas the humans set the time of these extinctions.

Things I didn't know...

Bats have a metabolism that is 3 to 5 times higher than terrestrial mammals. Apparently, the OXPHOS pathway is different in bats. It is sufficiently different that it is one way you can differentiate a member of Chiroptera from the rest of mammals, since it seems to have arisen once and been relatively conserved. That difference is apparently the reason why bats are the only truly flying mammals. There's a paper on it here that I read and I am chewing on mentally.

However, in there are also two other tidbits.

Primates have a unique variant on the pathway...for supporting the ever enlarging brain. This was selected for pretty aggressively, I'd guess.

Apparently, there was something like that - but not the same - happening in Proboscidea for much the same reasons.

Fascinating.

The Paleocene Emergence of Proboscidea

Paleocene emergence of elephant relatives and the rapid radiation of African ungulates

1. Emmanuel Gheerbrant

Unité Mixte de Recherche 7207, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Centre de Recherches sur la Paléobiodiversité et les Paléoenvironnements, Case 38, Département Histoire de la Terre, Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, 8, Rue Buffon, 75005 Paris, France

Abstract:

Elephants are the only living representatives of the Proboscidea, a formerly diverse mammalian order whose history began with the 55-million years (mys) old Phosphatherium. Reported here is the discovery from the early late Paleocene of Morocco, ca. 60 mys, of the oldest and most primitive elephant relative, Eritherium azzouzorum n.g., n.sp., which is one of the earliest known representatives of modern placental orders. This well supported stem proboscidean is extraordinarily primitive and condylarth-like. It provides the first dental evidence of a resemblance between the proboscideans and African ungulates (paenungulates) on the one hand and the louisinines and early macroscelideans on the other. Eritherium illustrates the origin of the elephant order at a previously unknown primitive stage among paenungulates and “ungulates.” The primitive morphology of Eritherium suggests a recent and rapid paenungulate radiation after the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary, probably favoured by early endemic African paleoecosystems. At a broader scale, Eritherium provides a new old calibration point of the placental tree and supports an explosive placental radiation. The Ouled Abdoun basin, which yields the oldest known African placentals, is a key locality for elucidating phylogeny and early evolution of paenungulates and other related endemic African lineages.

Interesting, interesting.

I'm reading Splendid Isolation right now and I have a few questions on Ungulate evolution...this is just adding to it. More later.

Indonesia's Uber Sized Pachyderm Fossil

Indonesian scientists are reconstructing the largest, most complete skeleton of a prehistoric giant elephant ever found in the tropics, a finding that may offer new clues into the largely mysterious origins of its modern Asian cousin.

The prehistoric elephant is believed to have been submerged in quicksand shortly after dying on a riverbed in Java around 200,000 years ago. Its bones — almost perfectly preserved — were discovered by chance in March when an old sand quarry collapsed during monsoon rains.

The animal stood four meters (13-feet) tall, five meters (16-feet) long and weighed more than 10 tons — closer in size to the woolly mammoth of the same period than to the great Asian mammals now on Earth.

Animal fossils are rare in the humid, hot climate of the equator because decomposition occurs extremely quickly.

Following a monthlong excavation, a team of seven paleontologists from the Geology Museum in Bandung, West Java, set the bones in plaster for the trip back to their office where they will be laboriously pieced back together.

"We believe from the shape of its teeth that it was a very primitive elephant," but little else has been verified, said paleontologist Fachroel Aziz, who is heading a 12-strong skeletal reconstruction team.

Another branch on the pachyderm family tree?

1 MY Serbian Mammoth Fossil Found

A well-preserved skeleton of a mammoth that is believed to be about one million years old has been unearthed in eastern Serbia, archaeologists said Thursday.

The discovery was made during excavation two days ago at an open-pit coal mine near Kostolac power plant, said Miomir Korac, from Serbia's Archaeology Institute.

A mammoth in a coal mine. Interesting combo. It's a southern mammoth (mammuthus meridionalis).