Paleontologists shocked by my discovery in California.
Paleontologists have discovered on the island of Santa Rosa is almost completely preserved skull of a mammoth. Interesting in this case is that the skull dates from the period 13 thousand years ago, when it was believed the mammoths preserved only in a few shelters in the Arctic.
On the continent, which is not far from Santa Rosa, for millions of years lived Mammuthus columbi, which could move a small isthmus separating the island about 150 thousand years ago. Here mammoths quickly turned into a dwarf Mammuthus exilis, which lived on the Islands of the Channel to 12 thousand years ago.
But found the head was too small for the first and too large for the representatives of the second kind. The explanation may be two: either it is a child M. columbi, or some transitional form between the two.And scientists are inclined to the second option, as the tusks of a mammoth were quite “adult”, the 1.4-meter-long and curved, whereas the young mammoth they would be shorter and more direct.
However, at the moment researchers are unable to explain how a mammoth could take the island 13 years ago. Earlier it was reported that scientists intend to revive mammoths. Scientists have almost completed work on compiling a genetic map of the mammoth, and assume that in 30-50 years they will be able to revive an animal extinct for over 10 thousand years ago.
