Tag: mammoth
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A Day at the Beach Hunting Mammoths
The New York Times has an interesting story about “citizen paleontologists” in the Netherlands. The beaches around Rotterdam’s port, the largest harbor in Europe, are loaded in Pleistocene fossils from the dredging of the North Sea floor. The beach where van den Berg was hunting, called Maasvlakte 2, is a particularly popular destination for fossil…
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PBS NOVA – Great Mammoth Mystery
PBS NOVA just published the “Great Mammoth Mystery” on Youtube. Sir David Attenborough investigates a unique site in southern England where amateur fossil hunters uncovered giant mammoth bones and evidence of Neanderthals. A team of paleontologists and archaeologists soon discover that the site preserves rare evidence of the extinct beasts and early human inhabitants of…
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‘Closer than people think’: Woolly mammoth ‘de-extinction’ is nearing reality — and we have no idea what happens next
LiveScience has news that the de-extinction of the Woolly mammoth is nearing reality. Colossal Biosciences, a Texas-based biotechnology and genetic engineering company, is working to bring the dodo (Raphus cucullatus), the Tasmanian tiger (Thylacinus cynocephalus; also known as the thylacine) and the woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) back from extinction. The question of can has morphed into the question of should. …
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A Mammoth First: 52,000-Year-Old DNA, in 3-D
The New York Times has a fascinating article about woolly mammoth DNA. A 52,000 year old chunk of mammoth skin from the permafrost of Siberia as been used to generate a three-dimensional model of their genome. The research was published recently in the journal Cell. The experimental method used in this study could be used…
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Fossil Hunter Pulls Massive Mammoth Jawbone Out of Florida River
The jawbone likely belonged to a Columbian mammoth. Fossil Junkies via Facebook Smithsonian Magazine has a story about the discovery of a Mammoth jawbone in Florida. The bone was found in the Peace River near Arcadia, Florida. The Peace River is known for producing fossils from the Pleistocene. The bone is probably 10,000 years old and likely…
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UIUC: A mammoth tribute to Illinois history
The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) has a new statue… and it’s a mammoth! A statue of a woolly mammoth was installed recently near the Natural History Building. The statue was sculpted by Taylor Studios in Rantoul, Illinois. You can find the press release here. Thanks for the tip, Ben Riegler! The next, and past, big thing:…
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New Mexico mammoths among best evidence for early humans in North America
Phys.org has a story about early humans in North America. It’s long been thought that humans arrived in North America about 12,000 maybe 15000 years ago. There has been some spare evidence of a much earlier arrival, which was often played off as incorrect dating or just incorrect evidence. Now a team from the University…
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‘She’s perfect and she’s beautiful’: Frozen baby woolly mammoth discovered in Yukon gold fields
CBC News has a story about the discovery of a mummified baby woolly mammoth. The animal lived about 35,000 years ago in the Canadian Yukon Territory near Eureka Creek, south of Dawson Creek. A gold miner was digging through muck with a front end loader when he discovered the find of a lifetime. A perfect…
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PBS Eons: How to Build a Woolly Mammoth (But Should We?)
There's a new episode of PBS Eons. This one is about Woolly Mammoths. Could and should we bring them back… In the quest to understand how evolution basically built the woolly mammoth, we may have found the blueprints for building them ourselves.
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Mammoth and Horse DNA Left in Freezer Rewrite Ice Age Extinctions
Smithsonian Magazine has a story about research that shows that woolly mammoths and other Ice Age animals survived up to about 5,000 years ago instead of the accepted 13,000 years. Frozen permafrost samples collected about 10 years ago were analyzed and they revealed DNA of wooly mammoths, wild horses, and steppe bison. The research was…
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A New Company With a Wild Mission: Bring Back the Woolly Mammoth
The New York Times has a story about a company that wants to bring back the Woolly Mammoth. The resurrection of extinct species has been discussed for a while now. And now a company named Colossal has raised $15 million dollars in funding to bring the Woolly Mammoth back to Siberia. A team of scientists…
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Roy Plotnick: The Real Monsters of the Midway: Mammoths and Mastodons of the Chicago Region
Roy Plotnick has a new article over on Medium. This time he’s written about Mammoths and Mastodons discovered in the Chicago area. I knew there were a bunch found, but wow! On October 25, 1880, workers putting in a sewer line along Fowler Ave. (now Schiller St.) just west of Wicker Park on the north side…
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PBS Eons: Why Male Mammoths Lost the Game
There’s a new episode of PBS Eons. This one is about male mammoths and their dangerous and mostly solitary existence. Woolly mammoths, our favorite ice age proboscidean, disappeared from Europe and North America at the end of the last ice age, about 10,000 years ago. Today, we’ve teamed up with TierZoo to solve one…
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NY Times: Male Mammoths Died in ‘Silly Ways’ More Often Than Females, Study Finds
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…
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Field Trip: March 3, 2012: Ancient “Elephants” Marathon
Come join us on Saturday, March 3, 2012 for a field trip as we explore many of the ancient elephants (a.k.a., mammoths and mastodons) that have been excavated and preserved around DuPage County. Jack MacRae, Naturalist, Forest Preserve District of DuPage County will lead us on the day-long excursion and field experience. This is a…
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Events This Week 6/13 – 6/20/2011
Saturday, 6/18 – ESCONI Field Trip to the Larson (Vulcan) Quarry on Barber Greene Road in Sycamore, IL. 9:00 am to 11:30AM. Sign up by sending me an email with the number of people and their names. I will acknowledge by return email. Dave fossil54@att.net Rules: 1. Must be an ESCONI member. 2. Must be…
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Events this week: Mammoth Lecture, Mineralogy Meeting, Chicago Rocks Silent Auction
Waking the Baby Mammoth, lecture by Daniel Fischer, Paleontologist on Tuesday, March 9. Field Museum at 7:30 p.m., $24 – $30 ticket. Mineralogy & Micromount Study Group Meeting. 7:30 p.m. Saturday, March 13. College of Dupage, Building K, Rm 131. Topic of discussion: Radioactivity in Minerals. Geiger counter will be available. Bring in copper specimens…
