The oldest woolly mammoth fossil in North America has been identified, and a recent study has revealed its genetic information.

A 216,000-year-old tooth discovered along the Old Crow River in Canada’s Yukon territory confirms that woolly mammoths appeared in the region at least 100,000 years earlier than previously believed.

Camilo Chacon-Duque, the study’s lead author and a researcher at the Centre for Palaeogenetics at Stockholm University in Sweden, noted that the discovery was remarkable. He explained that most mammoth specimens of this age from North America typically belong to species predating woolly mammoths.

Chacon-Duque stated that the Old Crow mammoth is the oldest North American mammoth fossil confidently identified as a woolly mammoth based on its physical characteristics.

DNA was extracted from the Old Crow mammoth as part of an extensive study into mammoth genetics. According to a statement from Stockholm University, the researchers uncovered “long-lost” genetic diversity from various mammoth lineages spanning over a million years of evolutionary history.

The DNA from the Old Crow woolly mammoth was among the oldest samples analyzed, categorized as “deep-time DNA,” although it was not the absolute oldest. The most ancient DNA, originating from Russia, dates back approximately 1.3 million years.

The research findings were published online in the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution on April 9, 2025.