Scientists: Mammoth elephants were able to adapt quickly to cold climate conditions

The mammoth's ancestors quickly adapted to the cold climate.

It had all the traits needed to live in the cold, harsh climate: thick fur, a thick layer of fat, small ears, and other distinguishing features.

Russian and foreign paleontologists studied the structure of the DNA of the oldest mammoths on Earth and found that the ancestors of giant elephants in the Ice Age, 600 to 700 thousand years ago, had thick hair, a thick layer of fat, and small ears. The scientists said in the journal Current Biology that this indicates the rapid adaptation of these mammals to the cold climate.

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The journal's press service quoted a professor at Stockholm University, Love Dalen, as saying: "The genome of the mammoth that was found on the Chukotka Peninsula in northeastern Russia and called (Chukuksha) allowed us to isolate a group of genes that changed their structure, compared to other genes as their ancestors evolved. We found that during Chukchucha's lifetime, ancient mammoths had 91.7% of the mutations that became characteristic of their later descendants."

It is reported that the mammoth elephant was one of the largest megafauna that lived in Eurasia and North America during the last ice age. Their numbers were very large only 50,000 years ago, however, they quickly disappeared around 15-20,000 years ago, when the glaciers began to withdraw. The exact reasons for their extinction are still being debated among scholars.

Researchers are now trying to get an answer to this question while studying the fossil DNA of ancient mammoths. Two years ago, a team of scientists led by Professor Dalin was able to decipher the oldest DNA fragments of the (Chukchi), (Krestovka) and Adychia mammoths buried in the permafrost 600-700 thousand years ago.

Scientists: Mammoth elephants were able to adapt quickly to cold climate conditions

Professor Dalin and colleagues, including Russian paleontologists from Moscow, Magadan and Petersburg, used these findings to study the genetic history of mammoth evolution. To do this, the scientists compared clusters of small mutations found in the genome of the well-preserved mammoth (chukotchi) and 20 other ancient mammoths that lived in Siberia some 50-100,000 years ago, on the one hand, and 30 African and Asian elephants. On the other hand.

Scientists sorted out more than 58 million different variants in the structure of the genomes of all the elephant mammals studied, which made it possible to discover a group of about 3,000 genes, the structure of which differed greatly between mammoths and modern elephants. Most of all, these changes affected 32 DNA regions associated with metabolism, hair growth, immunity, adipose tissue, sensitivity to cold, and body structure.

In addition, about 91.7% of the mutations in these DNA regions in the mammoth genome are also present in the reconstructed (Chukuchi) mammoth genome. This means that the first mammoths on Earth had almost all the key features needed to live in the cold climate, including thick hair, thick fat, small ears and other distinguishing features.