Readers react to million-year-old mammoths, parasitic plants and more

Big mouths to feed

The oldest animal DNA yet recovered comes from a mammoth that lived over 1 million years ago, Erin Garcia de Jesús reported in “Million-year-old mammoth DNA found” (SN: 3/13/21, p. 6).

Considering that a modern elephant can consume hundreds of kilograms of plant food per day, what could the mammoth have eaten in the frozen tundra, reader Peter Nissenson asked.