Does the 43 bp sequence from an 800,000 year old cretan dwarf elephantid really rewrite the textbook on mammoths?
Pigmy elephants inhabited the islands from the Mediterranean region during the Pleistocene period but became extinct in the course of the Holocene. Despite striking distinctive anatomical characteristics related to insularity, some similarities with the lineage of extant Asian elephants have suggested that pigmy elephants could be most probably seen as members of the genus Elephas. Poulakakis et al (2006) have recently challenged this view by recovering a short mtDNA sequence from an 800 000 year old fossil of the Cretan pigmy elephant (Elephas creticus). According to the authors of this study, a deep taxonomic revision of Cretan dwarf elephants would be needed, as the sequence exhibits clear affinities with woolly mammoth haplotypes. However, we point here many aspects that seriously weaken the strength of the ancient DNA evidence reported.
Orlando
Ludovic
L
Paleogenetics and Molecular Evolution; IFR128, Lyon, F-69007, France; Universiti Lyon 1, Lyon, F-69007, France. ludovic.orlando@ens-lyon.fr
Pagés
Marie
M
Calvignac
Sébastien
S
Hughes
Sandrine
S
Hänni
Catherine
C
D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D001842:Bone and Bones / Q000737:chemistry; D017931:DNA Primers; D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial / Q000032:analysis / Q000235:genetics*; D004606:Elephants / Q000235:genetics*; D005580:Fossils; D008521:Mediterranean Islands; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010802:Phylogeny; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction / Q000379:methods; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA / Q000379:methods
D017931:DNA Primers; D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial