| Doctor Duffy |
08-12-2005 11:43 AM |
The mammoths diverged from the Asian elephants about 4.8 million years ago, after their common ancestor split from the African elephants about 7.3 million years ago, meaning that the mammoths were in fact more closely related to the modern Indian elephant than the African elephant is to either. Since there is a known case in which an Indian elephant and an African elephant have produced a live offspring, it has been theorised that if mammoths were still alive today, they would be able to interbreed with Indian elephants, and this has led to the idea that perhaps a mammoth-like beast could be recreated by taking genetic material from a frozen mammoth and combining it with that from a modern Indian elephant. However, not enough genetic material has been found in frozen mammoths for this to be attempted [1].
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