Shocking discovery about what caused mammoths to go extinct

The disease that afflicts many people today may have been the reason why giant woolly mammoths no longer roam the earth.

Writing in the scientific journal Earth History and Biodiversity, a team of authors from Israel, Italy and Russia suggests that pollen allergies could explain the extinction of the mammoths.

It may sound strange, but at the end of the ice age, the habitat of these giant animals could be covered by "clouds" full of pollen.

The rise of post-ice age plants may have been the cause of mammoth extinction - (Illustration photo AI: ANH THU).

The team focused on woolly mammoths (Mammuthus primigenius) that lived during the ice age about 2.6 million to 11,700 years ago.

After the ice age, the woolly mammoth population declined dramatically. By 10,000 years ago, only a small population survived on isolated Wrangel Island in northeastern Russia until about 4,000 years ago.

The reason for the disappearance of this giant creature is still controversial. There are many reasons given: inbreeding, overhunting by humans, environmental change.

According to Live Science, new research has recreated the environment during the transition from the ice age to the warm period that followed.

The sudden change caused an explosion of vegetation in the frigid lands where the mammoths lived, including so many flowers that they created clouds of pollen .

That would be a tragedy for a species that has lived in the frozen regions for many generations, is not used to pollen exposure, and has a very good sense of smell.

The authors argue that allergies may have disrupted some important function of mammoth life.

They used their sense of smell to find food and mates, to navigate during migration and to avoid predators, so it was the sensitive, skillful proboscis that doomed the mammoth.

These research results are only hypotheses based on arguments about environmental and biological factors of the species.

The authors expect to find direct evidence in further studies.

One way to confirm whether mammoths had allergies is to examine the stomachs of natural "mummies" that have been found in icy Siberia, which may contain traces of pollen and other allergenic plants.

Next, to determine whether these chemicals actually caused allergic reactions in mammoths, the researchers proposed looking for immune system proteins that the body produces during an allergic reaction.

One of the main proteins is immunoglobulin E (IgE), which is produced in the gut and then excreted, so testing fossilized mammoth dung could help.

Now, there is strong evidence to support this hypothesis: Ancient DNA samples indicate that the last woolly mammoths from Wrangel Island lost the ability to smell certain flowering plants.