Wooly mammoths took last breath on a remote island

London: The last wooly mammoths that roamed the Earth on an island in Arctic ocean died 4,000 years ago owing to isolated habitat, extreme weather events and spread of prehistoric man, say researchers.
The last woolly mammoths lived on Wrangel Island in the Arctic ocean. An international research team from the Universities of Helsinki and Tübingen and the Russian Academy of Sciences has now reconstructed the scenario that could have led to the mammoths’ extinction.
The team examined the isotope compositions of carbon, nitrogen, sulfur and strontium from a large set of mammoth bones and teeth from Northern Siberia, Alaska, the Yukon, and Wrangel Island, ranging from 40,000 to 4,000 years in age.
The results showed that Wrangel Island mammoths’ collagen carbon and nitrogen isotope compositions did not shift as the climate warmed up some 10,000 years ago.
The values remained unchanged until the mammoths disappeared, seemingly from the midst of stable, favourable living conditions.
Earlier DNA studies indicate that the Wrangel Island mammoths suffered mutations affecting their fat metabolism.