Talk:Columbian mammoth

Mammoth

How long is the Columbus mammoth foot 107.127.28.14 (talk) 14:06, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

I'm not aware of sources that give such specific measurements, as goes for most creatures, they would be given for individual foot bones. FunkMonk (talk) 16:08, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

Timing

Reading Evolution and dispersal of mammoths across the Northern Hemisphere again, it implies that the species Mammuthus columbi only applies to remains of Late Pleistocene age. I don't known what this implies for the classification of remains of North American mammoths between 1.5 and 0.1 Ma, the earliest of which presumably were not a hybrid species (at least not with the woolly mammoth, anyway), but also implies that M. columbi is basically indistinguishable from M. trogontherii. Does this warrant changing the fossilrange in the taxobox or not? Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:25, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

Being from 2015, I it's too early to take into account the latest DNA papers, and now it's still very early days when it comes to concluding what these hybridisation findings will actually mean for mammoth taxonomy. So I think we need to wait for new publications. I can imagine it will take years for the dust to settle. Also, you removed the statement that the DNA analysed teeth were steppe mammoth-like, which I've re-added, since it's pretty important.FunkMonk (talk) 13:04, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

I think Lister is spot-on when he calls mammoths effectively a continuous metapopulation rather than neatly divided species. I'm satisfied with the content of the article as it currently stands. Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:12, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, but that doesn't translate well into clean cut traditional taxonomy. The name M. columbi would have to be arbitrarily retained instead of synonymised, which is de facto the case now. FunkMonk (talk) 20:43, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

Possibly More Reliable Calibrated Radiocarbon Date

@FunkMonk I'm reading the book "Vanished Giants: The Lost World of the Ice Age," and what I found is a table on pages 110-111 that lists the last known calibrated radiocarbon dates of different extinct species of the latest Pleistocene of North America, which could be of interest to you. According to Anthony J. Stuart, the latest calibrated date for M. columbi based on lab. no. "AA-2941" is 12,124-12,705 calibrated years Before Present. Your 2003 source by Hills et. al. is likely uncalibrated, meaning that it did not modify the actual radiocarbon date to be more accurate. This is something that I noticed when watching Megalonyx, in which user Hemiauchenia pointed out that people are mistakenly relying on the uncalibrated dates instead of calibrated dates (to be fair, the latter is rarer, causing confusion by those looking for latest radiocarbon dates). What this likely means is that M. columbi went extinct during the onset of the Younger Dryas and therefore did not reach the Holocene. If you feel this is incorrect, let me know.

Here's the table if you want to check it out: https://books.google.com/books?id=c_oPEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA111&lpg=PA111&dq=%22mammuthus%22+%22columbi%22+%22calibrated+date%22&source=bl&ots=VC__DXxj_a&sig=ACfU3U30Bd7qP4V6qBCf0bKIaDauIE-Saw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjYzbzFseCAAxURhIkEHa7GApE4ChDoAXoECAIQAw#v=onepage&q&f=false (page 111).

(Smilodon fatalis latest radiocarbon date is 13,093-13,272 calibrated years Before Present. Aenocyon dirus latest radiocarbon date is 13,560-13,471). PrimalMustelid (talk) 05:17, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

Read the South American chapter, and for Smilodon populator of South America, the latest calibrated radiocarbon date is 11,630-11,961 calibrated years Before Present while Smilodon sp. (possibly just S. populator) is 9,732-10,712 calibrated years. PrimalMustelid (talk) 05:47, 16 August 2023 (UTC)