Scientists have classified the world’s oldest DNA from a mammal that lived in the Siberian steppe more than a million years ago. The oldest record for the oldest DNA was from a horse that lived between 560,000 and 780,000 years ago.
“This DNA is very old. The samples are a thousand times older than the remnants of the Vikings and even premature in humans and Neanderthals,” he said. CNN Love Dalen, professor of evolutionary genetics at the Center for Palaeogenetics in Stockholm.
The researchers examined DNA from moles from three separate mammals found in Siberian freshwater in the 1970s. What they discovered was a new type of raspberry species we didn’t know about before.
“This came as a complete surprise to us. All previous studies have shown that there was only one species of mammal in Siberia at that time, known as the steppe mammoth,” he said. CNN study co-author Tom van der Valk, a postgraduate researcher at the Swedish Museum of Natural History.
The researchers found more unique features in the animals related to life in the frozen Arctic. “Finally, we show that the majority of protein coding changes were related to cold change in wool mammals already a million years ago. These findings highlight the potential of long-term palaeogenomics to broaden our understanding of long-term change profitability and evolution, ”the researchers wrote in their study.
However, classifying old DNA was not an easy task. The sample had been reduced into very small pieces that the researchers had to put together as a puzzle.
They said there were more than a billion pieces. To accomplish this complex task, they used a detailed genome from a live African elephant. This resulted in a sample that was capable enough for analysis.
The research is published in the journal Nature.