Museum Kept Mammoth Fossils for 70 Years. They Turned Out to Be Something Else Entirely

In a case of mistaken identity, fossils from two whales were disguised as the backbones of a woolly mammoth. The fossilized remains were kept at a museum for decades before closer investigations revealed the colossal error.

The two epiphyseal plates were discovered in Alaska in 1951 and initially assumed to be the fossilized bones of a woolly mammoth. The remains had been stored in the archives at the University of Alaska Museum of the North for more than 70 years until a team of researchers radiocarbon-dated the fossils, revealing that they are too young to belong to the extinct species.

Instead, the researchers, led by Matthew Wooller from the University of Alaska Fairbanks, discovered that the fossils were actually those of a minke whale and a North Pacific right whale. Their findings are detailed in a paper published in the Journal of Quaternary Science.

A mammoth error

The mislabeled fossils were brought to light through the museum’s Adopt-a-Mammoth program, which allows the public to choose a woolly mammoth fossil for further testing. As the researchers soon realized, they weren’t actually working with mammoth fossils.

Researchers used radiocarbon dating to determine the age of the fossils and found that they date back to around 2,000 to 3,000 years. Woolly mammoths, on the other hand, went extinct around 10,000 years ago, with a few small populations surviving up until 4,000 years ago. If the fossils in question did belong to a woolly mammoth, it would have been an entirely different discovery.

Intrigued by the results, the researchers opted to do a little more digging before claiming to have discovered the youngest woolly mammoth fossils. The team used stable isotope analysis to study the specimen’s history, diet, and movements by examining small changes in its isotopic ratios.

The findings show higher nitrogen and carbon levels than those found in land-dwelling herbivores like the woolly mammoth. Instead, the results more accurately matched up with marine creatures.

To identify which animal it was, researchers extracted mitochondrial DNA from the fossils and confirmed that the remains once thought to be from a woolly mammoth actually belonged to two whales.

The mystery continues

Even after identifying the real animal behind the fossilized bones, the researchers were intrigued as to how the whales were found far from the coastline in Alaska.

The team believes that the whales may have swum hundreds of miles through ancient rivers and inlets before meeting their end. That said, this theory seems unlikely for the North Pacific right whale—a large creature that feeds on plankton not found in rivers. Another theory is that the remains of the whales may have been moved by ancient humans, either to use as tools or to trade.

Then there’s the other possibility: the fossils were actually found near the coastline, but their location was mislabeled. That would make it a two-for-two human error against the woolly mammoth.