Extinct species lurking in Canada, living for another 5,000 years no one knows?

New DNA evidence reveals the famous woolly mammoth existed in Canada as long as 5,000 years ago, after being thought to be extinct worldwide for several millennia.

That's the result of research led by McMaster University (Canada), after analyzing DNA taken from soil samples taken from the Klondike region in Yukon, Canada.

This DNA treasure has been preserved for 30,000 years, detailing the existence of ancient flora and fauna in the area. They used it to revisit previous predictions of the extinction of mammoths and many other ice age animals, thought to have completely disappeared from the world nearly 10,000 to 11,000 years ago.

The natural "mummy" of a small curly woolly mammoth was displayed in Yokohama (Japan) a few years ago.

According to Gizmodo, the "youngest" DNA samples of the woolly mammoth (also known as the woolly mammoth, the tundra mammoth) and the North American horse show that both species were still present up to 5,000 years ago, in mid Holocene.

Meanwhile, other large animals of the ice age actually disappeared between 11,000-14,000 years ago, when the Earth's climate was unstable as the ice age gradually ended.

According to the Daily Mail, DNA evidence also shows that the disappearance of ancient beasts is not necessarily caused by humans hunting to extinction. At the 5,000-year mark before that, there were further major environmental changes that caused these organisms to disappear.

Another interesting finding from the study, according to Dr. Ross MacPhee from the American Museum of Natural History, is that the North American horse is not actually extinct. Ancient DNA shows it is directly related to a modern horse named Equus caballus.

"The amount of genetic data in the permafrost is sizable and really allows for reconstructions of an unprecedented scale of ecology and evolution compared to other methods to date," said Dr. McMaster University's Center for Ancient DNA, concludes.