Mammoth tusk found in SiberiaLOVE DALEN
Species: Woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius)
Genome size: ~4 billion base pairs
The most complete woolly mammoth genomes assembled to date reveal the genetic diversity of the extinct species during its last years of existence. An international team used DNA from mammoth remains dated more than 40,000 years apart to generate the two genomes reported last month (April 23) in Current Biology.
The younger mammoth genome was constructed using DNA from a 4,300-year-old molar found on Wrangel Island off the cost of northern Russia, where some of last mammoths lived. Since it’s estimated that woolly mammoths went extinct about 4,000 years ago, this sequence provides a picture of the population’s genetic health during its decline.
The team found that 23 percent of the Wrangel Island mammoth’s ...
