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Gene Reveals Mammoth Coat Colour
BBC ^
| 7-6-2006
| Rebecca Morelle
Posted on 07/06/2006 12:43:11 PM PDT by blam
click here to read article
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1
posted on
07/06/2006 12:43:14 PM PDT
by
blam
To: SunkenCiv
2
posted on
07/06/2006 12:43:44 PM PDT
by
blam
To: blam
They are thought to have died out about 4,500 years ago.Bush's fault...
3
posted on
07/06/2006 12:54:49 PM PDT
by
Onelifetogive
(Freerepublic - The website where "Freepers" is not in the spell checker dictionary...)
Woolly mammoths had both dark and light coats
4
posted on
07/06/2006 12:57:19 PM PDT
by
evets
(huh?)
To: blam
From what size predator, would a wooly mammoth have needed to evolve an ability to hide?
5
posted on
07/06/2006 1:02:37 PM PDT
by
patton
(LGOPs = head toward the noise, kill anyone not dressed like you.)
To: patton
I think early man hunted them, IIRC.
6
posted on
07/06/2006 1:08:22 PM PDT
by
lesser_satan
(EKTHELTHIOR!!!)
To: patton
From what size predator, would a wooly mammoth have needed to evolve an ability to hide?From that largest and most voracious of all predators, global cooling. Those with the lighter fur did better at the glacier edge while the darker furred animals roamed in warmer climes. /total conjecture
7
posted on
07/06/2006 1:17:06 PM PDT
by
NonValueAdded
("I'm all in favor of a dignified retirement: Why not try it on Kerry as a pilot program?" M. Steyn)
To: patton
Ebola's on the small side...
Then there are the animals that attack in packs. Get inside, and under the 12ft+ tusks, and it was probably
vulnerable, especially from *all* sides. I'm thinking hyenas, coyotes, etc.
To: NonValueAdded
Actually, you amy be onto something. It is no accident that the color of one's skin is inversely proportional to the distance one's ancestors lived from the equator.
9
posted on
07/06/2006 1:19:11 PM PDT
by
patton
(LGOPs = head toward the noise, kill anyone not dressed like you.)
To: patton
"From what size predator, would a wooly mammoth have needed to evolve an ability to hide?
"
Uh, humans and dire wolves and saber-toothed tigers, perhaps. Humans were the most dangerous predator of the wooly mammoth, though.
10
posted on
07/06/2006 1:19:45 PM PDT
by
MineralMan
(non-evangelical atheist)
To: blam
Did the light furred ones have to contend with affirmative action programs designed to aid the dark furred?
To: lesser_satan
I think those savage natives, unfamiliar with conservation practices, killed them all off. Selfish materialistic natives!
/sarcasm off
12
posted on
07/06/2006 1:36:09 PM PDT
by
mallardx
To: mallardx
Just looking up predators on mammoths on Google, I found an interesting thing. Apparently, there was a report in Siberia in 1918 of a hunter seeing a wooly mammoth. Sounds far-fetched, but Siberia's very large, and was very sparsely populated in 1918. I suppose it could have happened.
These days, it's unlikely that any such isolated mammoth could still survive, given our satellite mapping. But...you just never know. They've only been extinct, supposedly, for a few thousand years now.
Wouldn't that be a treat?
13
posted on
07/06/2006 1:57:07 PM PDT
by
MineralMan
(non-evangelical atheist)
To: MineralMan
They had cave lions 3 times the size of African lions back then. Some pretty big bears, too.
14
posted on
07/06/2006 2:14:13 PM PDT
by
Defiant
(MSM are holding us hostage. Vote Dems into power, or they will let the terrorists win.)
To: MineralMan
That would be the most amazing biological find of the century. That, or sasquatch/yeti.
15
posted on
07/06/2006 2:21:07 PM PDT
by
mallardx
To: blam
Wasn't this already known from the frozen carcasses that have been found?
To: Defiant
They had cave lions 3 times the size of African lions back then.
Interesting - were these direct ancestors of today's lions or, like saber-toothed "tigers", were they more distantly related members of the cat family that happen to share a name with the modern version?
I'm still not clear on why land mammal sizes seem to have shrunk (cave bear, dire wolf, giant sloth, Imperial mammoth, Baluchitherium to more modest sizes today).
To: AnotherUnixGeek
They were real lions, they just got bigger in the northern grasslands, where huge wooley rhinos, mammoths and humongous deer grew big on the abundance of food, and that in turn led to larger predators.
There were lions in Europe into Roman times. In Alexander the Great's time, they used to hunt them. They weren't the huge kind any more, though.
18
posted on
07/06/2006 2:52:41 PM PDT
by
Defiant
(MSM are holding us hostage. Vote Dems into power, or they will let the terrorists win.)
To: AnotherUnixGeek
I'm still not clear on why land mammal sizes seem to have shrunk (cave bear, dire wolf, giant sloth, Imperial mammoth, Baluchitherium to more modest sizes today).Because we nasty humans killed them off.
19
posted on
07/06/2006 3:06:46 PM PDT
by
Doodle
To: blam
GGG Ping?
Definitely, because I can use that joke again...
20
posted on
07/06/2006 8:29:17 PM PDT
by
SunkenCiv
(updated my FR profile on Wednesday, June 21, 2006. https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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