Mammoths stranded on Bering Sea island delayed extinction

University of Alaska Fairbanks ^ | 16-Jun-2004 | Contact: Marie Gilbert

[Rebelbase]

ping

[GOPJ]

Rules out volcanic dust ... etc.

St. Paul, one of the five islands in the Bering Sea Pribilofs, was home to mammoths that survived the extinctions that wiped out mainland and other Bering Sea island mammoth populations.

[Brilliant]

My interpretation: Man caused the extinction of the mammoth. These mammoths were on an island, protected from man, but eventually succumbed.

[edwin hubble]

I remember reading of an isolated population of mammoths on an island off Siberia, surviving well after the mainland population became extinct. The individual mammoths on the island became smaller in stature before finally going extinct.

[edwin hubble]

Most of the large mammals in North America mysteriously became extinct after the arrival of native Americans.

[Old Professer]

I still can't figure out how species began as a single-mated pair and then thousands of generations later succumbed to in-breeding pressures.

[Old Professer]

Atkins!

[FreedomCalls]

It was on Wrangel Island.

[Strategerist]

The evidence is overwhelming it was human hunting....

The authour of "Guns, Germs, and Steel" thinks it was and that's one of the greates books I've ever read.

Unlike the large animals of Africa, the ones of North America didn't have humans gradually evolving so they could get used to the idea that humans were a danger to them......they were easy marks.

[blam]

"I remember reading of an isolated population of mammoths on an island off Siberia, surviving well after the mainland population became extinct. The individual mammoths on the island became smaller in stature before finally going extinct."

I remember read that also.

[blam]

"These mammoths were on an island, protected from man, but eventually succumbed."

They were also isolated from diseases that may have killed the others. I don't think the human population was large enough to kill off all the things that went extinct...something else happened.

Surrounded by water on all sides, they would have been a few degrees warmer than those on the mainland.

[ckilmer]

Unlike the large animals of Africa, the ones of North America didn't have humans gradually evolving so they could get used to the idea that humans were a danger to them......they were easy marks.
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however the mammoths of siberia and europe also disspeared during the same period. mammoths of these areas had long lived side by side with humans.

[Strategerist]

Not really....the cold areas of Siberia were populated pretty late; MUCH later than the rest of Eurasia.

[Lijahsbubbe]

Does anyone have a pic of the Mammoth found in Siberia a couple of years back?

[Old Professer]

But a shrinking population eliminates heterozygosity from outside environmental pressures and the gene pool actually shrinks.

From, or due to, which is it?

[Old Professer]

Let's assume the first pair had no fatal gene mismatches; the offspring arrive singly and to get a second breeding pair it is necessary to have male and female offspring which reach maturity. Now, barring contest and absent moral restrictions, there is nothing to prevent a male offspring from mating with the original female and with its sibling as well and conversely female to male sire and new, contemporary generations would occur, about 8 total at this point then 16...

It would seem that monogamy would play a great part in migratory behavior and opportunity.

Still, it would require a rather favorable enviroment for the establishment of a non repeating breeding cycle and a chance for long-term success.

[Old Professer]

Crap, I misspelled environment.

[Doctor Stochastic]

Crap, I misspelled environment.

Use milieu; fewer letters; exoticker plural.