Name:
Hendrik Poinar: Bring back the woolly
mammoth!
It’s the dream of kids all around the world to see giant beasts
walk the Earth again. Could — and should — that dream be
realized? Hendrik Poinar gives an informative talk on the next
— really — big thing: The quest to engineer a creature that
looks very much like our furry friend, the woolly mammoth.
The first step, to sequence the woolly genome, is nearly
complete. And it’s huge. (Filmed at TEDxDeExtinction.)
1.
Watch the following Tedtalk on mammoths and answer the
following questions to the best of your ability.
http://www.ted.com/talks/hendrik_poinar_bring_back_the_woolly_mammoth
1. What conditions have allowed mammoth DNA to survive after thousands of years?
2. Would it be possible for our planet to provide a habitat for mammoths to live in? If so, what are
some possible locations?
3. Do you think if scientists have the capabilities to reintroduce the mammoth, should they
attempt to engineer a woolly mammoth 2.0? Why? What are the pros and cons of
reintroducing a mammoth into our modern world?
2. Read the following facts about mammoths. Highlight facts you didn’t know
and underline facts you found interesting.
10 fascinating facts about Woolly Mammoth -TedTalk blog Becky Chung May 30,2013 Thanks to frozen carcasses with skeletons, stomach contents, tusks and now liquid blood left intact — as well as
cave painting depictions by our human ancestors — scientists know more about the woolly mammoth than any
other prehistoric animal. Here are ten facts about the magnificent woolly mammoth, Mammuthusprimigenius,
to help ignite your imagination.
1.
Contrary to common belief, the woolly mammoth was hardly mammoth in size. They were roughly about the
size of modern African elephants. A male woolly mammoth’s shoulder height was 9 to 11 feet tall and weighed
around 6 tons. Its cousin the Steppe mammoth (M. trogontherii) was perhaps the largest one in the family —
growing up to 13 to 15 feet tall.
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2. The ears of a woolly mammoth were shorter than the modern elephant’s ears. Like their thick coat of fur,
their shortened ears were an important cold-weather adaptation because it minimized frostbite and heat loss.
.
3. Scientists can discern a woolly mammoth’s age from the rings of its tusk, like looking at the rings of a tree.
The tusk yields more finite detail than a tree trunk, revealing a major line for each year and a line for the
weeks and days in between. Scientists can even tell the season when a woolly mammoth died as the darker
increments correspond to summers. The thickness or thinness of the rings indicates the health of the
mammoth during that time; the tusk would grow more during favorable conditions.
.
4. The woolly mammoth was not the only “woolly” type of animal. The woolly rhinoceros, also known as the
Coelodonta, co-existed with the woolly mammoth, walking the Earth during the Pleistocene epoch. Like the
woolly mammoth, the woolly rhino adapted to the cold with a furry coat, was depicted by human ancestors in
cave paintings and became extinct around the same time.
.
5. Cave paintings drawn by ice age humans show the important relationship they had with the woolly
mammoths. The Rouffignac cave in France has 158 depictions of mammoths, making up about 70% of the
represented animals that date back to the Upper Paleolithic period. There is also evidence of the use of bones
and tusks by humans to create portable art objects, shelters, tools, furniture and even burials.
.
6. Today, the hunt is on for woolly mammoth tusks in the Arctic Siberia. Due to global warming, the melting
permafrost has begun revealing these hidden ivory treasures for a group of local tusk-hunters to find and sell.
A tusk can range from 10-13 foot in length and a top-grade mammoth tusk is worth around $400 per pound.
Mammoth ivory, unlike elephant ivory, is legal.
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7. The first fully documented woolly mammoth skeleton was discovered in 1799. It was brought to the
Zoological Museum of the Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Science in 1806 where Wilhelm
Gottlieb Tilesius put the pieces together. Basing his task off of an Indian elephant skeleton, Tilesius was
successful in reconstructing the first skeleton of an extinct animal except for one error. He put the tusks in the
wrong sockets, so that they curved outward instead of inward.
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8. The coat of a woolly mammoth consisted of a “guard” of foot long hairs, and an undercoat of shorter hairs.
Preserved mammoth hair looks orange in color; however researchers believe the pigment was changed
because of prolonged burial in the ground.
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9. Even a kid can discover a preserved mammoth. In September 2012 in Russia, an 11-year-old boy
named Yevgeny “Zhenya” Salinder happened upon an extremely well-preserved woolly mammoth carcass
while walking his dogs. The remains were of a 16-year-old male woolly mammoth that died about 30,000
years ago. The discovery helped scientists conclude that the large “lumps” on a mammoth’s back were extra
stores of fat to help it survive winters. The mammoth was nicknamed “Zhenya.”
.
10. The final resting place of woolly mammoths was Wrangel Island in the Arctic. Although, most of the woolly
mammoth population died out by 10,000 years ago, a small population of 500-1000 woolly mammoths lived
Interested in
on Wrangel Island until 1650 BC. That’s only about 4,000 years ago! For context, Egyptian pharaohs were
one more
midway through their empire and it was about 1000 years after the Giza pyramids were built. The reasons for
article on
the demise of these woolly mammoths are unknown.
mammoths?
Check out
this one.
Thanks
Faith!
http://scienceworld.scholastic.com/Earth-Science-News/2014/09/a-mammoth-gift