By Madeleine Muzdakis on March 8, 2021
An artist rendering of a steppe mammoth. (Photo: Beth Zaiken/Centre for Palaeogenetics)
The study of paleogenetics has a lot to teach us about the evolution of life on Earth. Until recently, the oldest DNA extracted and studied was that of an Ice Age horse found in Canadian permafrost and dating back about 700,000 years. Recent work by the Centre for Palaeogenetics in Stockholm, Sweden has taken a startlingly large leap forward and set a new record for the oldest DNA ever sequenced. In a paper published in
Nature, the researchers announced their sequencing of mammoth DNA thought to be at least 1.2 million years old. This exciting news also included the discovery of an entirely knew species of mammoth, likely a precursor to the
T
he wooly mammoth (
Mammuthus primigenius) is an iconic animal, like the saber tooth tiger or dire wolf, from a time in human history when our position at the top of the global food chain was decidedly not assured (and being something s prey was not limited to just other humans). Perhaps this is a reason that resurrection of mammoths using Jurassic Park-like technology has some currency and appeal (
but see
How to Clone a Mammoth for reasons why this may not be such a good idea). Perhaps paradoxically, the mammoth arose in Africa 5 million years ago and like its (very) distant