The NY Times has a story about a study which details how Male Mammoths may have lived and died.  The study, published last week in the journal Current Biology, found that roughly two-thirds of the fossilized Mammoth specimens were male.  The authors speculate that the skewed sex-ratio was due to risk behavior by young males after leaving the protection of their mothers.

Swallowed by a sinkhole. Washed away by a mudflow. Drowned after falling through thin ice.

These are the fates that many unlucky mammoths suffered in Siberia thousands of years ago. Their well-preserved fossils have provided paleobiologists with insight into their prehistoric lives. Now, after performing a genetic analysis on the remains from the furry victims of natural traps, a team of scientists made a striking discovery: Most were male.

“In many species, males tend to do somewhat stupid things that end up getting them killed in silly ways, and it appears that may have been true for mammoths also,” said Love Dalén, an evolutionary biologist from the Swedish Museum of Natural History.