Teeth from mammoths buried in the Siberian permafrost for more than a million years have yielded the world's oldest DNA ever sequenced, according to a new study.
Million-Year-Old DNA Rewrites the Mammoth Family Tree
Genomic data the oldest ever recovered from a fossil reveals the origin and evolution of the Columbian mammoth.
Love Dalen, left, a paleogeneticist at the Centre for Palaeogenetics in Stockholm, and Patricia Pecnerova, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Copenhagen, with a mammoth tusk on Wrangel Island, near Siberia.Credit.Gleb Danilov
By Katherine Kornei
Feb. 17, 2021
Imagine an elephant, but significantly taller and heavier and with longer tusks. That’s the Columbian mammoth, an imposing animal that roamed much of North America during the most recent ice age.
When it comes to the mammoth family tree, it has long been believed that the Columbian mammoth evolved earlier than the smaller, shaggier woolly mammoth. But now, using DNA that is more than a million years old the oldest ever recovered from a fossil researchers have turned that assumption on its head: They found that the Columbian mammoth is in
Analysis of genomes from extinct species reveals previously unrecognized genetic lineage and shines light on the Ice Age and the life of its giant mammals