According to biologists, the mammoths died out due to inbreeding.
The reason for the extinction of mammoths could be “mutational Bang” – a dramatic increase in the number of negative mutations in their DNA, triggered by a reduction in the number of these animals.
This is the conclusion of biologists from the University of California at Berkeley.
As stated in an article published in the journal PLOS Genetics, the scientists studied an isolated population of dwarf mammoths from Wrangel island, numbering 300 individuals. They became extinct about 4 thousand years ago. These mammoths were relatives of massive mammoths, which disappeared 45 thousand years ago.
It turned out that the dwarf subspecies has suffered a large number of harmful mutations in the genome. In particular, these mammoths could not distinguish odors.
Dwarf mammoths have acquired a large number of defects in the genes due to inbreeding, and that was the reason for the extinction.
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