Lesson 2

Question 1

How long was the Wooly Mammoth approximately preserved in the ice for?

Answer 1

40,000 years

Question 2

What is the closest species to the Wooly Mammoths?

Answer 2

Elephants

Question 3

What are megafauna?

Answer 3

Megafauna are large animals that were present during the Ice Age, for example mammoths.

Question 4

What was the name of the Wooly Mammoth calf found preserved in the ice?

Answer 4

Lyuba

Question 5

The CT scan provided detailed insights into Lyuba’s anatomy, what were the important clues to Lyuba’s death?

Answer 5

Sediment found blocking the trunk’s nasal passages and in the mouth and wind pipe suggests that she asphyxiated by inhaling mud after becoming trapped in a mire.

Question 6

How did scientist find out that only one month passed between Lyuba’s birth and and death

Answer 6

By slicing her second premolar and analysing its growth lines.

Question 7

What is it that allowed Lyuba’s body to be preserved so well?

Answer 7

Her body was immediately entombed in a mixture of clay and silt.

Question 9

Where was Lyuba found?

Answer 9

Yuribey River

Question 10

How did the silt and clay help preserve Lyuba’s body?

Answer 10

The wet silt and wet clay sealed out oxygen and thwart aerobic microbes that otherwise would have broken down her soft tissue

Question 11

In what year was Lyuba’s body discovered?

Answer 11

2006

Question 12

How was Lyuba exposed to humans?

Answer 12

A river undercuts a block of permafrost containing Lyuba. The block melts, exposing her body. Floodwaters wash it downstream to a sandbar. The smell of lactic acid wards off scavengers.

Question 16

How did climate change affect the extinction of Wooly Mammoths

Answer 16

The air was drier, there was less clouds and strong winds. Vegetation would have been broad leaved herbs and small cherubs. There was plenty of nutritious food to support megafauna’s. The sharp rise in temperature altered the vegetation to be just barren heaths and boggy tundra. It encourages the growth of toxic birch. Also the melting permafrost/ tundra helped preserve the bodies of the Wooly Mammoths.

Question 17

What percentage of habitat disappeared after sharp rise in temperature?

Answer 17

90%

Question 18

What is extinction?

Answer 18

The slow act or process of a group of similar organisms coming to an end or dying out:

Question 19

How are Mammoths adapted for the cold?

Answer 19

• Dense undercoat
• Guard hairs
• Small fury ears
• Tusks for fighting and foraging in the snow

Question 20

What are the food source for Mammoths?

Answer 20

Wooly rhinos, bison, beavers

Question 21

Where do Mammoths mainly appear?

Answer 21

North East Siberia

Question 22

How did humans put pressure on the species?

Answer 22

Mammoths were exploited for food. The bones and Ivory were good for weapons, tools and houses. Human hunters with spears and deadly stone points could have caused the extinction.

Question 23

How could you find the cause to a mammoths death?

Answer 23

When the you look through the layers in the mammoth’s tusk you get a record of what the world was like as each layer grew. At the root of the tusk, you get a clue to how the animal died, eg. injury, environmental stress or illness.

Question 24

What was evidence for the animals in North America that were impacted by hunting?

Answer 24

According to the layers in the tusks, animals were dying in the autumn, when they should have been at their physical peak after the summer. Natural change or lack of food is unlikely to be a cause and it was suggested that since many carcasses were found in peat bogs, hunters might have submerged them to preserve the meat.