Mammoths may not have recorded their adventures on Earth in stone, but they have something else that documents their journeys: their tusks. This particular tusk, however, is very special, as it belonged to a mammoth that covered a distance enough to circle the planet twice.
Published in the journal Science, researchers from the University of Alaska Fairbanks looked at the isotopes inside a 1.7-meter-long (5.6-foot) tusk from a woolly mammoth that lived in present-day Alaska just over 17,000 years ago.
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“It’s not clear-cut if it was a seasonal migrator, but it covered some serious ground,” added Matthew Wooller, senior and co-lead author of the paper from the University of Alaska Fairbanks. “It visited many parts of Alaska at some point during its lifetime, which is pretty amazing when you think about how big that area is.”
Learn more about this mammoth over at IFL Science.
That’s a lot of steps!
(Image Credit: JR Ancheta, University of Alaska Fairbanks)