New Scientist
Image: Pavel “KoraxDC” Kazachkov
It’s the land that time forgot. Not only have conditions in the Altai-Sayan region in central Asia barely changed since the last ice age, but the mix of mammals that lives there is also almost the same.
V?ra Pavelková ?i?ánková and colleagues at the University of South Bohemia in ?eské Bud?jovice, Czech Republic, compiled lists of mammals living at 14 sites across Eurasia. They compared them with mammals that lived at seven Eurasian sites during the last glacial period 35,000 to 12,000 years ago.
The team discovered that the combination of mammals found together in the Altai and Sayan mountains of western Mongolia and southern Russia – such as horses, reindeer, saiga antelopes and wolverines – is similar to the ancient glacial communities. There are a few obvious differences, however, such as the lack of mammoths.
These animals do not normally live together anymore, says Pavelková ?i?ánková. She says the Altai-Sayan is one of the last places on Earth to retain an ice age fauna (PLoS One, doi.org/q2n). Read more on newscientist.com…
