Long been regarded as woolly mammoths disappeared due to their excessive hunting by prehistoric humans. But a new situation brings to fore global warming that took place 21,000 years ago and that mammoths left without food.

That period was characterized by an increase in temperature and moisture, leading to expansion of forests at the expense plains – “supply” of herbaceous plants which fed the giant herbivores.

Researchers at Durham University Museum of Natural History, University of Bristol – all in Britain – and Lund University in Sweden were simulated using a computer program, the effect of global warming on vegetation at the end of last ice age.

They concluded that reducing the spread of trees and pastures have led to extinction of mammoth and have warned that a similar phenomenon could happen in our time: the current global warming could alter the habitats of species such as elephants and rhinos, resulting in their disappearance.