For the first time in tropical latitudes, scientists have sequenced ancient DNA from the only mammoth endemic to North and Central America: the Columbian mammoth. The research revealed unexpected — and as yet unexplained — genetic differences that made these animals distinct from their northern counterparts.
Columbian mammoths (Mammuthus columbi) were approximately 13feet (4 meters) tall and towered over their woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) relatives, with whom they co-existed and even interbred. Their fossils have been discovered in Canada, the U.S., Mexico and Central America. But information regarding how they evolved in the Americas remains unclear.
