Stuffy noses from plant allergies may have meant mammoths couldn't smell each other's pheromones, resulting in them struggling to find a mate.
Woolly mammoths may have gone extinct because of a rather less dramatic reason than some other theories—stuffy noses from allergies.Frozen tissue samples from mammoth remains have been found to contain traces of antibodies and allergens, indicating that these ancient giants may have been experiencing plant allergies as the climate shifted, impacting their ability to smell, according to a new paper in the journal Earth History and Biodiversity.
If these allergic reactions ended up blocking up their nose, as it does in humans, then it may have prevented the mammoths from smelling out the pheromones given out during their mating season, limiting sex and therefore offspring.
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