Posted on 08/14/2006 9:17:59 PM PDT by peyton randolph
And of course there are volumes of evidence (plants preserved in the mammoths' stomachs, pollen inventories of core samples, isotope ratios, etc) that the environment was arctic and subarctic or alpine, if somewhat different from the same regions today:
However, the Siberian steppes during the last ice age were not covered in ice and snow as they are now, nor was the ground frozen. The reason is that so much of the available water was locked up in the arctic ice pack -- primarily in North America -- that the subarctic steppes were much drier than today. As a result, the Siberian soil thawed to a greater depth and supported a richer variety of plant life. This included nutritious grasses. The stomach contents of preserved mammoths indicate that they fed on such grasses, as well as mosses, sedges, herbaceous pollens and spores, and fragments of willow and bilberry. Some rare poppies and buttercups have also been found in addition to small amounts of arboreal material such as larch needles, willows, and tree bark. Such variety indicates the mammoths lived in a variety of climates in Siberia. These ranged from dry and steppe-like to slightly wet to swampy to arctic/alpine.
Mammoth trunk tips were bi-lobed, useful for collecting herbaceous food. Relatively little arboreal material has been found in mammoth stomachs. Modern elephants, in contrast, prefer an arboreal diet, and their trunk tips are of unequal size.
The greater abundance and variety of steppe vegetation during the ice ages explains how the steppes could support large grazing animals like mammoths. The mammoths may also have migrated south in the winter and north in the summer. Modern elephants are great travellers, so possibly mammoths were too.
How old are the frozen mammoth remains from Siberia? They fall into two main groups, one dating from about 45,000 BP to 30,000 BP and the other from 14,000 to 11,000 BP. This does not mean that mammoths were not present in Siberia from 30,000 BP to 14,000 BP. Instead, this indicates the climatic conditions were not right for the formation of frozen carcasses. There are plenty of fossil bones of mammoths from 30,000 to 14,000 BP. This was a period of massive glacial advance, resulting in extremely dry conditions in Siberia. In these dry conditions, mammoth carcasses would tend to rot on the surface and/or be eaten by predators. In times of glacial retreat, when the climate was moister, summer mudflows and floods could rapidly cover carcasses. These covered carcasses would then become permanently frozen as the permafrost layer closed in above them during the following winter.
Was the climate warmer or colder in Siberia at the time the mammoths lived there? Well, both. It appears that at some periods the climate was warmer, at others it was colder. This is inferred by comparing the modern ranges of the plants found in mammoth stomachs as well as by astronomical calculations of temperature similar to those presented at various times in the past in this news group. The mammoths thrived in either case. The determinative factor was the decreased moisture so that the ground did not become permanently frozen as it is today. As a result, the "mammoth steppe" biome, comprised of grasses, succulent herbs, and wormwood, thrived. This biome disappeared around 9000 BP except for some small patches. It was replaced by the current boggy tundra vegetation and permafrost. The mammoths, having lost their source of food, disappeared in Siberia at about the same time. It is possible that predation by man was also partly responsible. The earliest human remains in Siberia date from the end of the last ice age.
Only if we assumed Vaquero was stupid. As stupid as, say, folks who think mammoths were flash-frozen by some Velikovskiesque catastrophe.
Otherwise we would assume that only comparisons wrt closely related taxa (e.g. NOT SNAKES) would be relevant. E.g. comparing the ears of mammoths to other elephantine mammals would be relevant, with respect to ears and other cold/heat adaptations.
maybe they'll eat kudzu.
"If sperm of extinct mammalian species, for example the woolly mammoth, can be retrieved from animal bodies that were kept frozen for millions of years in permanent frost, live animals might be restored by injecting them into oocytes [eggs] from females of closely related species.”
***
If they oocytes come from a "closely related species" -- which would be what today? -- then it is not the same species, is it?
Oh goody. BP and Exxon look out.
...other creatures that we probably don't need and can't deal with.
&&
Those creatures call themselves the "Democratic Party".
"creationism/ID are not science in any way shape or form. "
Did I say they were? In fact I am contributing to a document which argues against considering ID science. On the other hand, I do not subscribe to the philosophical basis that most around here use to argue against ID, namely naturalism.
The combination of coy and snippy doesn't really work too well, but whatever.
No, you didn't literally assert that snakes had ears. But you did so assertion by clear implication. In #64 you said:
Do all animals with tiny ears live in cold climates? Snakes don't have large ears.
Of course not a single word of this makes any sense apart from snakes having some sort of external ear that would have some sort of "size".
updated List of Ping lists vol.III(Get Your Fresh Hot Pings Here!)
Of course not. Science deals in evidence for and against theories and hypotheses, not "proof". And the anomalously small (compared to other elephants) mammoth ears are only one of a coordinated suite of features consistent with cold adaptation: body size and shape, hair, tusk configuration, etc. The author of your webpage doesn't seem to understand much of the evidence. I don't know if he's right about "erector muscles" on the hairs or not, but that's irrelevant to the mammoth's configuration. The thick, soft woolly underhair traps heat simply by it's fine texture and thickness, and the coarse guard hairs on the outside of the coat keep out the wind and shed moisture.
Fluffing/erecting the hair as the author suggests would not help keep the mammoths warm, as the author suggests. Quite the opposite. It would only perturb the whole system by also disturbing the guard hair layer and opening the lower layers to the environment.
Finally, mammoths aside, the paleobotany (evidence from fossil pollen, plants in the frozen mammoths' stomaches, etc) is TOTALLY out of whack with the author's claim that the animals inhabited a "tropical" climate.
Yes. I certainly think, beyond any reasonable doubt, that until corrected, you thought snakes had very tiny ears as opposed to none.
What you originally posted:
Do all animals with tiny ears live in cold climates? Snakes don't have large ears.
...makes no sense in any other context. There's no remotely imaginable reason you would have posted that comment if you in fact knew that snakes had no external ears and no ear openings at all.
(Admittedly it makes little sense anyway, as that kind of comparison between members of such widely separated taxa is silly, and has nothing to do with the kind of comparison Vaquero had in mind, namely comparing the small ears of mammoths to the large ears of African elephants, or to the ears of Asian elephants for that matter (smaller than Africans but still far larger in relation to body size than those of mammoths).
You'd do yourself less damage by owning up to a minor boo-boo than engaging in Clintonesque word games: "I didn't actually 'say' what I unmistakably implied!"
Reptiles never had ears in the first place. There was no opportunity for something to "vanish" that never existed to begin with. So, as if this was your original point ("I'll make a point of commenting that something that doesn't have ears doesn't have large ears") it's equally uninformed. But then you'll now admit that since you're "one of the first around here to admit [a mistake]". (As if.)
Me too, but I'd just want it while it was a puppy, then I'd let it go.
Then your behavior makes little sense. The webpage you made a point of linking, posting and defending didn't argue that mammoths lived in "mild" climates. Few in fact would argue that the climates they inhabited probably varied (seasonally and/or through migration) between cold and somewhat "mild". Your author argued that mammoths lived in a TROPICAL environment, and were SUDDENLY FROZEN by a global catastrophe of Velikovskian, planets in near collision, proportions.
Defending such a WILD, nutball theory is hardly consistent with someone who "could hardly care less" if it was true or credible.
Remember to have your Mammoth spayed or neutered, it's for the good of the community.
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