This is scientific American's 60 second science. I'm Christopher Intagiyata.

Woolley mammoths once ruled the northern reaches of our planet, roaming from Portugal to Siberia and beyond to Alaska, Canada and the American Midwest.

And the massive beasts left lots of fossil evidence of their occupation.

But now scientists have noticed a strange trend among those mammoth remains.

The researchers genetically analyzed the fossilized bones, teeth, and tusks of 98

individual Siberian mammoths and they found that 70% of the mammoths were males.

So essentially we think this is driven by two different things.

Louva Delian, a paleogenesis and professor at the Swedish Museum of Natural History in Stockholm.

In general, in wild animals, males tend to be more risk-taking.

The second thing, if modern elephant culture is any indication, is that male mammoths may have been solitary loners,

more likely to crash through thin ice and sinkholes or get caught in a mudslide than females.

Those types of death are also more likely to become preserved,

so those are the remains that we find today.

The studies in the journal Current Biology.

Delan says this is an important reminder that the fossil record is far from complete.

Fossils we find might not always be representative of the species back when it lived.

But with a little detective work, even seemingly random remains have much to reveal.

Thanks for listening.

For Scientific American 60 Second Science.

I'm Christopher and Deliata.