Mammoth shmammoth, I want a dire wolf!

Sybarite: Mammoth shmammoth, I want a dire wolf!

They're back...well, sort of.

CraicBaby: Sybarite: Mammoth shmammoth, I want a dire wolf!

They're back...well, sort of.

This gives me a deep Happy as it had always been on my "If I won hundreds of millions in the powerball" bucket list. I'd always figured I'd start with cross breeding wolves and Great Pyrenees on one side and Wolves and Irish Wolfhounds on the other, then mixing both and selecting for height.

Okay now, Cave Bears anyone? I mean it can't be only mammoths we have DNA sample for can it? Did no other species ever visit the Arctic. And what wouldn't you give to see a Teratorn like Argentavis fly again?

I read that as "Pleistocene Pizza"

Mmm...pizza

Now here's a stupid question. They call mammoths "prehistoric creatures". Yet, there have been cave paintings of mammoths found made by ancient peoples. Aren't cave painting considered a sort of recorded history of what these ancient peoples saw? Does that not mean they are therefore NOT prehistoric just really, really old? Of are cave paintings considered too primitive to be regarded are recorded history?

Oooo.... Looky the typos and grammar boo-boos I made. Remind me not to type drunk.

Drunken_Polar_Bear: Now here's a stupid question. They call mammoths "prehistoric creatures". Yet, there have been cave paintings of mammoths found made by ancient peoples. Aren't cave painting considered a sort of recorded history of what these ancient peoples saw? Does that not mean they are therefore NOT prehistoric just really, really old? Of are cave paintings considered too primitive to be regarded are recorded history?

Generally recorded history is thought of as having begun with the invention of writing, though I suppose you've got an arguable point.

I want them to bring them back, and eventually make them available for hunting. Yeah, I'd never be able to afford a mammoth safari, but I wouldn't mind living vicariously through someone who can.

Drunken_Polar_Bear: Now here's a stupid question. They call mammoths "prehistoric creatures". Yet, there have been cave paintings of mammoths found made by ancient peoples. Aren't cave painting considered a sort of recorded history of what these ancient peoples saw? Does that not mean they are therefore NOT prehistoric just really, really old? Of are cave paintings considered too primitive to be regarded are recorded history?

Paul Tournal specifically coined the phrase anté-historique (prehistoric) to refer to those cave paintings he was studying in the south of France. It just means anything before there was a language to write things down (~3200 BCE Mesopotamia, 1200 BCE China, 600 BCE Mesoamerica).

you have pee hands: dittybopper: I want them to bring them back, and eventually make them available for hunting. Yeah, I'd never be able to afford a mammoth safari, but I wouldn't mind living vicariously through someone who can.

It can't be that tough if the cavemen managed to wipe them out with rocks and spears.

Honestly, there isn't a single species of megafauna that we as humans have come into contact with that we haven't been able to kill with something as prosaic as a simple spear. It's one of our main talents.

Fark Rye For Many Whores: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleistocene_Park_%28Kolyma_River%29

Yeah, im surprised the article didnt mention it, but theyre actually doing that, reintroducing various fauna to the area to satisfy prehistoric niches in the ecosystem, its pretty farking awesome. No cloned anythings yet though.

Pinner: dittybopper: I want them to bring them back, and eventually make them available for hunting. Yeah, I'd never be able to afford a mammoth safari, but I wouldn't mind living vicariously through someone who can.

700 lbs of vegetation per day... where to let them graze... hmmm....
This aint gonna be no free-range mammoth.

Plenty of places in, say, Canada or Siberia. Lots of wide open spaces.

Even if they aren't necessarily "free range", I still wouldn't have much of a problem with a hunt on fenced land, provided we're talking hundreds or thousands of acres, depending on the method used. If you're hunting them on foot with atlatls, then it might be appropriate to do it in an enclosure that is only a few dozen acres.

from the article:

"Scientists already have deciphered much of the genetic code of the woolly mammoth from balls of mammoth..."

Ya don't say?

pheed: Gaint? Is that a combination of the words dainty and gait?

It's a gunt in your taint.

kudayta: What about atlatls?

That is such a fun word to say.

Mammoths would be neat, but I'm frankly waiting to see THESE guys around:



Homotherium serum, a scimitar cat that would have been around long enough in North America to welcome folks across the Bering Strait bridge...when it wasn't nomming on mammoths, that is.



Smilodon fatalis, pretty much the sabertoothed cat that everyone thinks about. It would be especially neat to see the Nashville Zoo have a small smilodont colony, seeing as Nashville's hockey team is named for a specimen of S. fatalis floridanus discovered when building their arena. :D



Meganenteron cultridens, a rather more obscure sabertoothed cat that went extinct JUST as we were evolving (Smilodon probably evolved from it) and this particular reconstruction is oddly adorable in my opinion. :D

(And yes, it's pretty much the conventional wisdom among paleontologists nowadays that the machairodont cats had spotty coats; most cats that live in savannah environments tend to be spotty cats, and spottiness seems to be the ancestral condition (as seen in baby pumas and cheetahs, which are considered to be the most basal of surviving felids) of cats...tabby patterns seem to have evolved from spotted coats (you sometimes see this in "king cheetahs" which have coats resembling the "marbled tabby" pattern) but tend to be fairly unusual in "big cats" aside from tigers (which are primarily forest/jungle cats). Another possibility is that machairodont kittens/cubs could have been spotty and the adults a singular colour, much like in lions and pumas.)

Alas, it'd probably take more work to bring back machairodont cats than mammoths (it's my understanding that mammoths are fairly closely related to Asian elephants, whilst machairodonts are a "third lineage" of modern felids separate from pantherine or feline cats--"roaring" and "purring" cats respectively) but once you get enough mammoths, you get food for big kitties with big teeth (that, as it turns out, were pretty much used for one-hit jugular severing and strangulation kills--which also explains why machairodont cats were big burly cats that could give jaguars a run for their money)... :3

/now we just have to find some well preserved great big kitties with big teeth :3
//A MAN CAN DREAM, CAN'T HE?

Awww, one of the pics got ate...ah well, here's a smaller version of that Meganenteron reconstruction that pretty much SCREAMS CaveLOLCat Fodder:

Slaxl: OK, 4 people, 2 spears, one atlatl and one bow. Is that suitable for you, my council of mammoth hunting law regulators?

I'm down with that.

my_cats_breath_smells_like_cat_food: RedVentrue: Smilodon fatalis, pretty much the sabertoothed cat that everyone thinks about. It would be especially neat to see the Nashville Zoo have a small smilodont colony, seeing as Nashville's hockey team is named for a specimen of S. fatalis floridanus discovered when building their arena. :D



Meganenteron cultridens, a rather more obscure sabertoothed cat that went extinct JUST as we were evolving (Smilodon probably evolved from it) and this particular reconstruction is oddly adorable in my opinion. :D

(And yes, it's pretty much the conventional wisdom among paleontologists nowadays that the machairodont cats had spotty coats; most cats that live in savannah environments tend to be spotty cats, and spottiness seems to be the ancestral condition (as seen in baby pumas and cheetahs, which are considered to be the most basal of surviving felids) of cats...tabby patterns seem to have evolved from spotted coats (you sometimes see this in "king cheetahs" which have coats resembling the "marbled tabby" pattern) but tend to be fairly unusual in "big cats" aside from tigers (which are primarily forest/jungle cats). Another possibility is that machairodont kittens/cubs could have been spotty and the adults a singular colour, much like in lions and pumas.)

Alas, it'd probably take more work to bring back machairodont cats than mammoths (it's my understanding that mammoths are fairly closely related to Asian elephants, whilst machairodonts are a "third lineage" of modern felids separate from pantherine or feline cats--"roaring" and "purring" cats respectively) but once you get enough mammoths, you get food for big kitties with big teeth (that, a ...

It's all fun and games untill your smilodon eats someone. I read somewhere that smilodon can leap/ pounce farther than any cat living today.

A common misconception, that record is actually held by his nemesis, the frownodon.

/groan

*snerk* :D

In all seriousness, though...machairodont cats probably couldn't outjump leopards or pumas (the feline kings of jumping)--they're actually extremely burly and somewhat front-heavy cats, built more like hyenas or bears than what we typically think of as cat (jaguars, which are pretty much the burliest and most muscular of the pantherines, would look positively wimpy compared to Smilodon et al). :D

This is because big kitties with big teeth are big game specialists (to the point they likely went extinct because they couldn't hunt small game effectively).

Most sproingy cats tend to have powerfully built hindquarters. :D