Did inbreeding cause the woolly mammoth’s extinction? Our research suggests it was more sudden than that

In science, we usually share our successes and ignore the less glamorous mishaps. We decided to follow a different approach. This is the story of how multiple generations of scientists collaborated to decipher the genome of the mammoth formerly known as Lonely Boy, often referred to as the last mammoth on the Earth.

The woolly mammoth was one of the most charismatic species of the last Ice Age, between roughly 120,000 to 12,000 years ago. Yet, the cause of its extinction remains a mystery.…

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