This article was originally published on our sister site, Freehink.
An international team of researchers has reconstructed the life of a woolly mammoth that lived in Alaska more than 17,000 years ago.
By deciphering clues hidden in their tusk, we can not only unravel the mysterious life and death of these charismatic creatures, but we also understand the impact of climate change on modern species.
Because mammoths became extinct is a mystery: theories include disease and a changing climate.
Mammoth Company: Woolly mammoths were large elephant-like creatures that roamed the Earth for nearly five million years, before becoming extinct around 2000 BC.
Exactly Because the extinct species is a mystery: theories include disease, overhunting by humans, climate change, or some combination of factors, and solving it has been a challenge because we don’t know much about how animals lived.
Why it’s important: If the climate contributed to the extinction of the woolly mammoth, studying its experience can help us predict how modern species will respond to current warming.
“The Arctic is undergoing a lot of changes now and we can use the past to see how the future can be played out for current and future species,” the author said in a press release, Matthew Wooller.
“Trying to solve this detective story is an example of how our planet and ecosystems react to environmental change,” he continued.
“From the moment they are born until the day they die, they have a diary … written on their teeth.”
—LEG PRINTING MILL
Everything in the tusk: When a woolly mammoth is born, its fang is just a small cone, and as it ages, new layers pile up on top of that cone. Observing these layers can provide clues about the life of a mammoth, similar to how we can learn about the environment of a tree by studying the rings of its trunk.
“From the moment they are born until the day they die, they have a diary and it’s written on their teeth,” co-author Pat Druckenmiller said. “Mother Nature doesn’t usually offer such convenient, lifelong records of an individual’s life.”
For this new study, the researchers cut a woolly mammoth tusk 8 feet long in length and analyzed the chemical signatures trapped in each layer.
They then connected these signatures with different places and events to reconcile the life story of the mammoth.
The woolly mammoth walked approximately 44,000 miles during its 28 years of life.
A rise in nitrogen in one of the last bands that formed in the mammoth’s fang, for example, probably indicates that the animal starved to death. Meanwhile, the food he ate left signatures that could connect with specific parts of the Alaska landscape.
Using this information, the researchers were able to track the mammoth’s movements and determine that it walked approximately 44,000 miles during its 28-year life; if this had been in a straight line, it could almost have circled the Earth twice.
Historical study: A woolly mammoth tusk is not enough to explain the extinction of an entire species, much less to predict future extinctions, but it does give scientists new insights into the daily lives of enigmatic creatures.
“This is a better understanding [of] how they behaved, what environment they used, ”Wooller told the New York Times.
“When you try to find out what the causes of an extinction were,” he added, “you need to know a little more about the behavior and ecology of the organisms involved.”