The very last population of woolly mammoths in the world survived on a small tundra island in northeast Siberia until only about 4,000 years ago, when the Egyptian pyramids were being built. They outlasted their cousins on the mainland by thousands of years, and have been the subject of intense research and intrigue. This remote […]
If you’re well-versed in Pleistocene ecology, you’ve almost certainly heard about the steppe-tundra, also known as the mammoth steppe. During the Last Glacial Period, this biome covered vast parts of three continents: Europe, Asia, and North America. The name “steppe-tundra” refers to the fact that it contained a unique mixture of steppe and tundra species,
One of the most striking things about the glacial cycles of the last 2.5 million years is how species survived the various dramatic shifts in climate. Among the ways plants and animals survived unfavorable climatic phases was retreating to relatively small regions where conditions remained tolerable, and then using those areas as bases from which