The reason why male mammoths disappeared thousands of years ago

Scientists found the cause related to the way in which the male mammoth mysteriously disappeared thousands of years ago.

Guardian quoted the researchers as saying that male mammoths often move alone and are in danger without help from the herd. They fell into the river, through ice or swamp. This is believed to be the reason why male mammoth fossils become popular.

On the contrary, females often follow the pack and are led by an older individual who is knowledgeable about the terrain and knows how to avoid danger.

The habit of moving alone makes male mammoths easy to die.(Photo: Getty).

"Without living in the herd and missing the first male, male mammoths are more likely to die than females," said Love Dalen, a researcher from the Swedish Museum of Natural History.

He and his colleagues studied the gene to determine the sex of 98 mammoth fossils in Siberia. Results showed that about 69% of the specimens were male elephants.

This makes scientists hypothesize that habits and ways of life may have affected the death of male mammoths during the Ice Age.

The study shows that the mammoth body parts found in Siberia are not much changed because they are buried and carefully preserved from outside agents.

Mammoths are one of the largest animals in the world, disappearing from Earth about 4,000 years ago. Scientists believe that climate change is the main cause of the extinction of this elephant.

In July, billionaire Peter Thiel, founder of Paypal, invested in an ambitious science project to revive giant elephants. They performed DNA transplantation using CRISPR gene surgery, based on mammoth genes, to alter genes in modern elephants.