Scientists are confident they can perform this mammoth feat:

Will the wooly mammoth which is now extinct walk the Earth once more, taking the limelight away from the Asian and African elephants - the largest animals on land at present? According to scientists, it is a strong possibility. In about another five years or so, they claim they could clone a wooly mammoth. Those of you who read the article titled 'Wooly mammoths may roam again' which appeared in last week's Junior Observer may already be pondering over the news. Even though the scientist, Prof. Akira Iritani of Japan and a team of Russians who are researching into this at present, are highly excited about the outcome, many are sceptical about bringing back to life this massive creature which died out over 10,000 years ago.

Most people have expressed concern over the possibility of these creatures eventually increasing in numbers, and the impact they would have on other animal species including humans. Some critics warn it would end up like 'Jurassic Park', as wooly mammoths are recorded to be vicious and powerful creatures which attacked other animals when they were alive. It is believed that even bullets may not be enough to stop them if the mammoth population gets out of hand, because, this species has the ability to reproduce fast.

This massive extinct creature is back in the limelight once again, after managing to do so earlier too being featured in the popular movie 'Ice Age', earlier. So, let's checkout some interesting facts about wooly mammoths that we are likely to see in the near future, if the cloning techniques that have already been perfected become fruitful - with an Asian or African elephant giving birth to one.

Wooly mammoths are prehistoric creatures like the dinosaurs and are known in the modern world only by fossils. It was originally believed that wooly mammoths disappeared from Europe and southern Siberia about 10,000 BC. However, recent findings show evidence of their presence even around 8,000 BC. Wooly mammoths as well as Coloumbian mammoths had disappeared from the North American Continent at the end of the last ice age. A dwarf variety of wooly mammoths are recorded to have lived in small herds on St. Pauls Island in Alaska until 3,750 BC and another small group on Wrangel Island located in the Arctic Ocean, until 1700 BC.

Most wooly mammoths died at the end of the Pleistocene due to climate change and hunting pressure. According to available fossils, the wooly mammoth is not much taller than the African elephant, but it's much bigger and heavier. It is estimated that a fully grown mammoth bull would have reached heights between 2.8 m (9.2 ft) and 4.0 m (13.1 ft) while the dwarf varieties may have been between 1.8 m (5.9 ft) and 2.3 m (7.5 ft) in height and weighing over 8 tons.

What's most impressive about the mammoth species when compared to present day elephants which are actually only distant cousins, is their huge tusks. Wooly mammoths are believed to have had extremely long tusks - upto 5 m (16 ft) in length that were markedly curved. The fossils so far discovered clearly reveal that these tusks were curved more than the tusks of the present day elephants. No clear understanding has been reached as to why these tusks were so curved and what purpose they really served. Some researchers have however put forward the theory that the mammoths used them as snow shovels to get at the vegetation beneath the layer of snow.

So, what other differences did they have in physical features compared to present day elephants? Well, it has been observed from fossils discovered so far that the mammoths had smaller ears than African elephants with the largest ear so far discovered on a partially fossilised mammoth being only 12 inches or 30 cm long compared to 71 inches (180 cm) for an African elephant.

If you are confused as to why the term 'partially fossilised' was used it is because generally the remains of most prehistoric animals found so far have been mostly skeletons. However, researchers say that those of mammoths are often not literally fossilised - that is not turned into stone but are rather preserved in their organic state. This enables scientists to give accurate descriptions of their physical features without having to depend only on computer projections based on the skeleton or isolated bone discoveries.Accordingly, they say that the mammoth's skin is no thicker than that of present day elephants. However, as they had a layer of shaggy hair upto one metre long on the skin (which insulated them from the cold wintery climate), they also had numerous sebaceous glands in their skin. These glands secreted greasy fat into their skin and

fur improving their insulating qualities. The layer of fat under the skin is said to be about 8 cm thick and very much like the blabber of whales which helps them to keep warm. Apart from the wooly hair and fat, the mammoths haemoglobin also helped these giant animals to keep themselves warm in the freezing cold. The researchers say the haemoglobin was adapted to the cold with three genetic mutations to improve oxygen delivery around the body and prevent freezing. It is also recorded, going by

the discovery of the nearly preserved frozen remains of a baby wooly mammoth named Dima, that the mammoth's trunk was different to that of its Southern cousins. Apparently the upper lip at the tip of Dima's trunk had a broad lobe feature while the lower lip had a broad squarish flap. Even their teeth had been adapted to their diet of coarse thundra grass. Scientists say mammoths had more plates and a higher crown than the present day elephants. Their heads too had a different shape to those of modern day elephants.

So, if scientists do succeed in bringing back to life this gigantic animal species that once lived in abundance in the Arctic region, we would all have an opportunity to see this awesome animal.

Facts and pix: Internet

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[ FACT FILE]

* The wooly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius ) is also called the thundra mammoth. It is a species of mammoth.

* They are one of the most known species of mammoth and is among the best-understood prehistoric vertebrates known to science in terms of anatomy.

* Studies have revealed that wooly mammoths lived in two groups which were so different to one another leading scientist to class them as a subspecies.

* According to cave paintings found in Dordogone, France, the wooly mammoth had a high peaked head which is knob-like in appearance, highly curved tusles and ears that were smaller to the present day African elephants. They also had a high shoulder hump.

* In 1796, French scientist Georges Cuvier identified the remains of a wooly mammoth to be those of a new species and not those of modern elephants transported to the Arctic from the tropics as believed by British scientist, Hang Sloane who first examined wooly mammoth remains in 1728. However, Cuvier's observations that the skeletal remains were those of an animal species which had gone extinct were not widely accepted.

* The wooly mammoth was given its scientific name Elephas primigenius in 1799 by Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, placing the animal in the same genus as the Indian elephant.

* It was only in 1828 that Joshua Brooks recognised the species was distinct enough to be given a separate genus and reclassified the mammoth as Mammuthus primigenius.

* President Thomas Jefferson is said to be partially responsible for transforming the word mammoth from a noun (which describes the prehistoric elephant) to the adjective used today to describe anything that is amazingly large.

The first recorded use of this word as an adjective was in a description of a large wheel of cheese given to him as a gift.

* The stuffed Beresovka mammoth speciman called Adam's mammoth is on display at the Zoological Museum of the Russian Academy of Sciences' Zoological Institute in St. Petersburg.

It was recovered from a Siberian hunter (Ossip Schumachov) by Russian botanist Mikhail Adams in 1806. The hunter had discovered the mammoth fossil in 1799 and had allowed it to thaw with the intention of selling the ivory tusks to the thriving ivory trade in Yakutsk.

* Preserved frozen remains of wooly mammoth with much of their soft tissue have been found in the Northern parks of Siberia.

* In Yukutia, Siberia, more than 9,000 bones from at least 156 individual mammoths have been found in a single spot.

* The wooly mammoth remains are not totally fossilised partly due to the frozen climate of their habitat and also to their massive size.

* The word mammoth derived from the Russian word for the animal's remains - mammaut first entered the English language around the 17th century.

* In 1977 the well preserved carcass of a baby wooly mammoth which was named Dima, was discovered. It was recovered from the permafrost on a tributary of the Kolyma River, Siberia.

According to carbondating, Dima had died about 40,000 years ago. The seven to eight month old baby mammoth had weighed 100 kg at death. Its height was recorded at 104cm (41 in) and length at 115 cm (45 in).

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