In modern elephants, herds of females and young live together, led by an experienced female, whereas males are more likely to live in bachelor groups or alone.
Not exact matches
That's the vision of Harvard geneticist George Church, who has been experimenting with recreating an actual Wooly Mammoth by combining DNA from one of the long dead creatures found frozen
in Siberia with material from
modern elephants.
The portolan chart's inland portions were decidedly less
modern, but they showed no shortage of imagination, featuring pictures of Italian dukes and,
in Africa, unicorns and
elephants illustrating «travelers» tales.»
The team wanted to use tissue from hundreds of mammoth carcasses found
in permafrost to work out the relationships among the animals and compare them to their distant cousins,
modern elephants.
«It was a big challenge to extract the DNA sequences from the fossil mammoths and mastodons and then to line these up with DNA from the
modern elephants,» says Nadin Rohland, an evolutionary geneticist at Harvard Medical School
in Boston and the study's lead author.
Their footprint trails veer
in unison, implying that the animals turned together as a herd, somewhat like
modern elephants or migrating geese.
Sauropods were colossal creatures, reaching up to 50 meters
in length and weighing as much as 77 metric tons — 14 times the weight of
modern - day African
elephants.
In spite of their size, these big mammals were extremely vulnerable, as are
modern elephants.
Modern conservation efforts tend to center around large animals — such as tigers,
elephants, and wolves — and top predators
in peril, while Roopnarine and Angielczyk show that small amniotes (reptiles and ancient mammal relatives) were most vulnerable during the early phase of this long - ago period of extinction.
Modern African
elephants have teeth designed for grazing — perhaps because their ancestors sought out new dining experiences millions of years ago, according to a study
in today's issue of Nature.
Biologist R. Dale Guthrie of the University of Alaska
in Fairbanks largely agrees with the findings, but he says more work is needed to explain why some mammoths seem to have survived
in regions colonized by humans and why many
modern elephants live
in areas easily accessible to humans, such as the African savannah.
Preliminary analysis shows that the mammoth was a female who shared 98.55 % of her DNA with
modern African
elephants, the researchers report online this week
in Science.
Modern elephants survived
in refuges uninviting to humans, such as tropical forests, says Surovell, whose team reports its findings online this week
in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The result: As many as 38 percent of the
elephants in some
modern populations have no tusks [source: BBC News].
The
elephant in the room is chronic inflammation, which has been linked to most
modern diseases.
With a fun and
modern elephant design
in white and charcoal, it can be personalized for an extra-thoughtful gift.
It's a big, unusual book
in every way, featuring not only a story about an old, distinguished
elephant named Marcel, but a compendium of assorted facts about everything from musical instruments and classic
modern furniture to a variety of gourmet desserts.
The retirement enclaves of Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia offer not only well - appointed villas with
modern kitchens and private swimming pools — some are only a short drive away from wild pygmy
elephants, monkeys swinging
in the trees, and the world's most spectacular beaches.
Later,
in the accompanying panel discussion, someone broached the delicate
elephant of «what the international media calls «
modern slavery,»» especially
in a moment when skilled builders are so desperately needed
in Nepal.