The Woolly mammoth is an extinct species of elephant that populated much of Eurasia and North America until about 10,000 years ago. Along with their living relatives, the African and Indian elephants, mammoths originated in Africa millions of years ago and within the last several hundred thousand years adapted to the numerous ice age periods in the northern hemisphere. But eventually they became extinct when their habitat changed. The plan to clone a woolly mammoth from well-preserved mammoth samples found frozen in Russia is turning out to be a somewhat controversial venture, but that is exactly what a Japanese scientist at Kinki University in Japan intends to do.