by frozen mammoths that appear in Siberia,
or similar areas where the tundra melts and reveals a corpse, but this find is from a stream bank on Santa Rosa Island, California, it is even
more interesting as there is a chance it could be a transitional animal, the skull is
larger than those of pygmy mammoths, but smaller than a typical Columbian
mammoth skull, the fossil may have been a young Columbian mammoth, if so, this
might indicate that the species migrated to the Channel Islands twice--once
about 150,000 years ago, allowing its descendants time to evolve into pygmy
mammoths, and a second time between 10 and 30,000 years ago, it’s less likely
but possible that the mammoth represents a transitional species between
Columbian mammoths and pygmy mammoths, what exactly the animal is will be known when the scientists start studying its fossilised teeth.
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