Increasing successes in using long term frozen cells to create viable clone embryoshave made some speculate it’s only a matter of time unit they can use frozen mammoth cells to clone a mammoth using an elephant as the gestation engine.
If this is done will you need to to provide an air conditioned environment for the woolly beast so it doesn’t overheat?
Probably not. It gets fairly warm in the Arctic during the summer. Polar bears, musk oxen, and caribou do fine in temperate-zone zoos during the summer even without AC.
Yes but elephants (I’m guessing) would have some far more serious heat retention issues than smaller beasts. Just as a point of comparison I wonder what was the average seasonal daily temperatures during the ice age? I’ve always assumed it was considerably “colder”, but never thought about how cold.
True, which may be why modern tropical elephants are relatively hairless. But as I said mammoths would have had to be able to survive at least moderately warm temperatures during summers.
Global average temperatures were substantially lower, but bear in mind that this just meant that the climactic zones moved southward. Mammoths lived on the steppes south of the ice-sheets, which probably did not encounter temperatures much lower than those found in the high Arctic today (though of course lower than the contemporary conditions at those latitudes.)
Consider the musk ox which used to cohabit with the woolly mammoth .
From the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums
No mention of air conditioning.
There’s a muskox farm in Fairbanks Alaska where I grew up. It routinely gets into 80s during the summer, sometimes even the 90s. The muskox don’t melt. It is very common for summer temperatures to be very high in continental arctic regions, and any arctic animal must be able to tolerate those temperatures or it will go extinct.
The mammoths would have had to tolerate summer temperatures in the 80s and 90s even during the ice age.
What do they do in zoos? I don’t think I’ve been to any zoos with polar bears, but I have seen penguins just sitting out in the open in the summer time.
If heat turns out to be too much of a problem would giving it a hair cut help?
Also if a breeding population is established how viable would it be to reintroduce them to the wild?
Polar bears and other arctic animals are frequently kept in open-air enclosures in the temperate zone. Polar bears usually are provided with a big pool where they can cool off if needed.
Note that many penguins, especially those most commonly seen in zoos, actually live in temperate areas in South America or Africa and normally have to deal with summer temperatures in their native environment.
I remember scientists finding buttercups in the stomach of a frozen mammoth which would suggest that they grazed fine in temperate climes where the weather at least went into the 70s or so.
If they’re anything like wild elephants in temperament, it would be a bad idea.
With regards to controling the environment of the new baby mammoth, I would suggest a closed positive pressure clean air enclosure.
Who knows what viruses have evolved in the last 10,000 years, that the mammoth is not prepared for.
There’s a species of penguins that lives near the equator - the birds are more heat tolerant than they’re sometimes given credit for. Also, penguins are typically provided with water to swim in, which will greatly aid them in keeping cool.
Likewise, Chicago zoos have polar bears which tolerate our summer heat. Again, there’s a big pool of water which the bears make use of. Needless to say, the bears LOVE our winters.
Remember animals aren’t people - they aren’t stupid enough to force themselves to jog 5 miles at noon on a blazing hot day during an ozone alert. No, animals lay about in the shade in those conditions which also helps with heat tolerance. Heck, I had a housecat that was pretty stupid for a cat, but he learned to jump into a bucket of water or the bathtub to cool off on really hot days even if he wasn’t fond of water. He just disliked being overheated even more than being wet.
Any resurrected mammoths would be monitored for signs of heat stress and given shade, water, etc. which should be sufficient to keep them healthy.