Researchers Solve Mammoth Evolutionary Puzzle: the Woollies Weren't Picky, Happy to Interbreed
Monday, May 30, 2011 - 19:00
in Biology & Nature
A DNA-based study sheds new light on the complex evolutionary history of the woolly mammoth, suggesting it mated with a completely different and much larger species. The research, which appears in the BioMed Central's open access journal Genome Biology, found the woolly mammoth, which lived in the cold climate of the Arctic tundra, interbred with the Columbian mammoth, which preferred the more temperate regions of North America and was some 25 per cent larger.