Did Pollen Allergies Cause Woolly Mammoths' Extinction? New Study Proposes a Surprising Theory

Woolly mammoths have been considered an extinct species for a variety of reasons, such as climate change and human activities. However, one new research hints at a contrasting idea: the supposed death of this gigantic creature may be linked to its experiencing pollen allergy.

It is, in fact, at the end of the last Ice Age that it is postulated that there was a sudden rise in vegetation, consequently producing an excess of pollen. This could have led to allergic reactions in mammoths and therefore made their sense of smell fail. If mammoths relied highly on smell for several key activities like searching for food, escaping predators and finding mates, allergy by pollen would have seriously eroded these functionalities.

Can Allergies Explain Extinction?

According to scientists, this situation during the mating season must have hindered the capacity of the mammoths to communicate and mate. Such could be a basic cause of the sharp population drop they witnessed.

This scientific hypothesis needs further tests, such as examining fossilized mammoth remains for immune proteins associated with allergic response.

Even if the story presented in the study is so captivating, most of the experts are not fully convinced of the outcome of the study. One such counter is from Vincent Lynch, an evolutionary biologist, who believes that the extinction cause of the mammoths would probably be due to a change in the environment and hunting done by humans. Until such concrete evidence comes to light, the pollen allergy theory will remain an interesting and debatable topic in mammoth research.