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Lack of water likely caused woolly mammoths' extinction

Thursday, 04 August 2016 1:45 AM [ Last Update: Thursday, 04 August 2016 1:46 AM ]

Mexican archaeologist Luis Cordoba works on parts of a skeleton of a mammoth discovered in December 2015 in Tultepec, Mexico on 24 June 2016. AFP

A team of US scientists say lack of drinking water has likely been the major cause of the extinction of the world's last surviving groups of woolly mammoths over five thousand years ago.

The researchers say the mammoths' demise happened as climate change caused fresh-water lakes to become shallower and harder to access.

The last living group of mammoths is believed to have lived on Alaska’s Saint Paul Island until 56-hundred years ago.

The study also warns that a similar scenario could imperil island people and animals in the coming years. The researchers say as the climate warms and sea level rises, fresh water gets harder to access.

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