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☆ Dire wolves, camels, and other extinct giant mammals that used to live in North America
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-14 | by ( Jenny Mcgrath | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +16 min

North America used to be crawling with giant mammals, from dire wolves to big cats. In North America, "you only get the woolly mammoths up in the north, starting around the Great Lakes," Lindsey said. AdvertisementOnce thought to be the cousins of gray wolves, dire wolves evolved separately over 5 million years ago in North America. AdvertisementThe ancient bison, Bison antiquus, was 25% larger than those living today. A recent study suggested modern bison — Bison biso — evolved from this species.

Persons: —, wasn't, Emily Lindsey, Markus Matzel, Lindsey, Mike Kemp, mastodons, Benji Paysnoe, Camelops, Spencer, scotti, Daniel Eskridge, Andrew Milligan, scimitars, Jeffrey Greenberg, priscus, Katherine Frey, it's Organizations: Service, National Park Service, National, South America, AP, Universal, Washington Locations: America, Asia, Australia, South America, Alaska, North America, Africa, Bering, Mexico, Costa Rica, Great, Canadian Yukon, of Panama, North, South, Eurasia, Americas, Spanish, Canada, Florida, Yukon, Gulf, Central, South Asia, China, California

☆ Human-caused fires may have contributed to the extinction of saber-toothed cats, dire wolves, and other animals 13,000 years ago
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-18 | by ( Jenny Mcgrath | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +9 min

The La Brea tar pits captured dire wolves, sabertooth cats, and other megafaunal for millennia. Statues of megafaunal mammals give La Brea Tar Pit visitors a sense of what animals roamed the area thousands of years ago. The loss of herbivores at La Brea could've contributed to a feedback loop, making fires — however, they started — more intense, the paper's authors say. Paelongotolist MacPhee cautions that there could be other explanations for why these animals in the 61/67 tar pits stopped appearing. Excavation of the La Brea tar pits has yielded hundreds of thousands of fossils.

Persons: —, Robin O'Keefe, O'Keefe, it's, Regan Dunn, Dunn, Jae C, Ross MacPhee, wasn't, MacPhee, Guy Robinson, Robinson, Sharon Levy, Amelia Villaseñor, C, Villaseñor Organizations: Service, Arlington Springs Man Locations: Brea, Wall, Silicon, Los Angeles, Southern California, Rancho La, Elsinore, Lake Elsinore, Northern Canada, La Brea, Rancho La Brea, Yukon, Orange County , New York, North America, Arlington Springs, Southern

☆ A lost ecosystem revealed in Greenland by oldest environmental DNA
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-10 | by ( Ashley Strickland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

A long time agoAn artist's illustration reconstructs Greenland's unique ecosystem as it existed 2 million years ago. Beth ZaikenScientists in Denmark have found the world’s oldest DNA sequences in sediment from the ice age. The core, taken from northern Greenland, revealed that the polar region was once abundant with plant and animal life 2 million years ago. Mastodons, reindeer, geese, lemmings and hares lived in an ecosystem that was a mix of temperate and Arctic flora and fauna. The fossil includes the head, neck and body together — a rare discovery for the marine reptiles, which didn’t preserve well in one piece.

Scientists have analyzed what they say is the oldest DNA recovered to date, allowing them to reconstruct what life was like two million years ago in northern Greenland. The findings suggest a rich ecosystem that sustained a mix of animals and plants that doesn’t coexist anywhere on Earth today. The researchers analyzed fragments of ancient DNA preserved in the area’s sediments. The region hosted mastodons, reindeer, lemmings and geese, as well as birch, poplar and thuja trees. Horseshoe crabs, green algae and other marine life occupied nearby waters.

☆ Oldest DNA reveals life in Greenland 2 million years ago
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-07 | by ( Associated Press | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +5 min

NEW YORK — Scientists discovered the oldest known DNA and used it to reveal what life was like 2 million years ago in the northern tip of Greenland. With animal fossils hard to come by, the researchers extracted environmental DNA, also known as eDNA, from soil samples. Studying really old DNA can be a challenge because the genetic material breaks down over time, leaving scientists with only tiny fragments. In their study, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, they compared the DNA to that of different species, looking for matches. He worked on the study that previously held the “oldest DNA” record, from a mammoth tooth around a million years old.

☆ Oldest DNA sheds light on a 2 million-year-old ecosystem that has no modern parallel
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-07 | by ( Katie Hunt | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

CNN —A core of ice age sediment from northern Greenland has yielded the world’s oldest sequences of DNA. They then compared the DNA fragments with existing libraries of DNA collected from both extinct and living animals, plants and microorganisms. It was super exciting when we recovered the DNA (to see) that very, very different ecosystem. They found no DNA from carnivores but believe predators — such as bears, wolves or even saber-toothed tigers — must have been present in the ecosystem. Further study of environmental DNA from this time period could help scientists understand how various organisms might adapt to climate change.

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