![]() |
Credit: RGBstock / Sias van Schalkwyk |
A new study of elephants, mammoths and mastodons show they were all interfertile or capable of hybridization.To read the rest, click on "Elephants and Mammoths Were All One Kind". You can also listen to the song sung by John Elefante of Mastedon. If he sounds familiar, maybe it was from when he was a lead singer for the group Kansas.
Our present world is impoverished of elephants, or “elephantids” as scientists dub the family. Mammoths and mastodons roamed throughout America and Asia, evidenced by the massive fossil beds, where millions of mammoth bones can be found in permafrost. Some in the frozen tundra from Alaska to Siberia still retain soft tissue, organs and hair. These days, the two remaining species of elephants are primarily restricted to Africa and India.
How different are the extant types of elephants from the extinct types, such as mammoths and mastodons? With genomics, scientists can begin to answer the question.
Looking for a comment area?
You can start your own conversation by using the buttons below!