The oldest DNA ever decoded belonged to a mammoth from a mysterious, previously unknown lineage that lived about 1.2 million years ago, a new study finds.
Previously, the oldest known sequenced genome came from a horse that lived up to 780,000 years ago, in what is now Canada's Yukon Territory. Now, the mammoth discovery, "is, with a wide margin, the oldest DNA ever recovered," study senior researcher Love Dalén, a professor of evolutionary genetics at the Center for Palaeogenetics in Stockholm, said at a news conference Tuesday (Feb. 16).
The remains of the mysterious mammoth were discovered near Siberia's Krestovka River (now the mammoth's namesake). After studying its ancient DNA, along with the newly sequenced genomes of two other mammoths — a roughly 700,000-year-old woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) and an approximately 1 million-year old woolly mammoth predecessor — the scientists made a surprising discovery: Woolly mammoths mated with a mammoth from Krestovka's mysterious line about 420,000 years ago, leading to a hybrid mammoth we know today as the Columbian mammoth (Mammuthus columbi).
Read Full Article »