Mammoth tissue analysis showed that males of this species were necessarily alive. Reported by the University of Michigan.
Modern-day male elephants, meaning “drunk” in Persian, are afflicted. Meanwhile, the testosterone level in their blood increases tenfold and the animals become extremely aggressive and dangerous. At the same time, the evolutionary meaning of the onset of such states is unclear – for example, elephants do not have a fixed breeding period and, as a rule, must appear in winter.
Now American scientists have analyzed the ancient tusks of a male and female woolly mammoth, a relative of elephants. The age of the “male” female preserved in the Siberian permafrost is 33,000 years. Its texture contains traces of periodic bursts of testosterone, similar to those seen in modern elephants. Along with testosterone, traces of other steroid hormones were also found. These chemicals are incorporated into dentin, the mineralized tissue of all teeth (teeth are long upper incisors). The work was carried out by drilling the material in layers according to the chronological order of growth. Then the dentin was subjected to chemical analysis.
The authors hope that their work will not only shed light on the evolution of the proboscis, but also show the possibility of studying the hormonal system of ancient animals.
ancient scientists clarified a new type of activity in the brain of a dying person.