Startling evidence has been found which shows mammoth and other great beasts from the last ice age were blasted with material that came from space.
Eight tusks dating to some 35,000 years ago all show signs of having being peppered with meteorite fragments.
The ancient remains come from Alaska, but researchers also have a Siberian bison skull with the same pockmarks.
The scientists released details of the discovery at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco, US.
They painted a picture of a calamitous event over North America that may have severely knocked back the populations of some species.
"We think that there was probably an impact which exploded in the air that sent these particles flying into the animals," said Richard Firestone from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
"In the case of the bison, we know that it survived the impact because there's new bone growth around these marks."
The embedded particles have a high iron-nickel content
clipped from: news.bbc.co.uk 
