Is it free woolly?<\/p>\n
Scientists were flabbergasted after discovering that the mammoth backbones that had been housed in an Alaskan museum for 70 years actually belonged to a whale, per a study published in the Journal of Quaternary Science.<\/a><\/p>\n This archaeological case of mistaken identity began way back in the 1950s, when archaeologist Otto Geist\u00a0happened upon some bones while traveling through the Alaskan interior, roughly 10 miles North of Fairbanks in a region formerly known as Beringia, The Smithsonian Magazine reported.<\/a><\/p>\n The growth plates, pictured, belonged to two species of cetaceans. University of Alaska Fairbanks<\/p>\n He assumed the remnants, a pair of growth plates, belonged to the plush pachyderm mammoth based on their size and the fact that they were found in a region known for producing megafauna fossils.<\/p>\n The area had previously yielded the remains of mammoths, bison and other creatures dating to the Late Pleistocene.<\/p>\n Geist subsequently transported the items to the University of Alaska\u2019s Museum of the North.<\/p>\n They remained archived there for seven decades under the wrong label until an investigation by the institution blew the lid off this whale of a \u201ctail.\u201d<\/p>\n Through radiocarbon dating, the museum determined that the backbone fossils were between 2,000 and 3,000 years old. That was far too young for a mammoth, which went extinct 10,000 years ago \u2014 although some populations held out for 6,000 more years.<\/p>\n Illustration of a woolly mammoth. noskaphoto \u2013 stock.adobe.com<\/p>\n If the bones did belong to the tufty tusker, they\u2019d be by far the youngest fossils ever found, wrote University of Alaska Fairbanks biogeochemist Matthew Wooller and his team in the study.<\/p>\n Another peculiarity? Carbon and nitrogen analyses revealed that the lusciously locked landlubbers subsisted on marine organisms.<\/p>\n Hoping to solve this paleontological caper, the fossil sleuths conducted DNA testing on the remains, only to discover that they belonged to two different species of whales: a minke whale and a North Pacific right whale.<\/p>\n A minke whale, one of the real owners of the fossils. Jay S \u2013 stock.adobe.com<\/p>\n In doing so, they\u2019d finally exposed this cetacean in mammoth\u2019s clothing.<\/p>\n But solving the mammoth masquerade only raised another question: \u201cHow did the remains of ancient whales become emplaced in sediment so far from the coastline?\u201d<\/p>\n There are several theories. <\/p>\n Some scientists claimed the fossils had been transported there by animal scavengers or indigenous tribes who made tools out of whale bones.<\/p>\n However, the most commonly accepted explanation was that the remains had been mislabeled as hailing from the interior, when Geist had actually happened upon them closer to the sea.<\/p>\n Either way, Wooller believes that the misattributed remnants could shed light on cetacean behavior.<\/p>\n \u201cNow you\u2019ve got two ancient whale specimens that are now documented and genetically typed in the museum,\u201d he told KTUU-TV<\/a>. \u201cThose might be useful as parts of whale studies going forward.\u201d<\/p>\n This isn\u2019t the first time fossils have been misidentified of late. <\/p>\n