That’s the Columbian mammoth, an imposing animal that roamed much of North America during the most recent ice age. When it comes to the mammoth family tree, it has long been believed that the Columbian mammoth evolved earlier than the smaller, shaggier woolly mammoth. But now, using DNA that is more than a million years old — the oldest ever recovered from a fossil — researchers have turned that assumption on its head: They found that the Columbian mammoth is in fact a hybrid of the woolly mammoth and a previously unrecognized mammoth lineage. During the last ice age, humans living in what is today the United States would have primarily encountered the Columbian mammoth, said Love Dalen, a paleogeneticist at the Centre for Palaeogenetics in Stockholm. “It’s an iconic species of the last ice age,” he said.

Source: New York Times February 17, 2021 15:56 UTC