1.   He hopes to explain whether a changing climate destroyed pygmy mammoths or Indians hunted them to extinction.

2.   The islands in the Channel Islands National Park off the Santa Barbara coast are the only islands in the world where the remains of pygmy mammoths have been found.

3.   The pygmy mammoth is believed to be indigenous to the Channel Islands, and isolated bones have been discovered there before, Spears said.

4.   Down there, scientists hope to find new species of plants and animals, sunken ships, Indian artifacts and fossils of pygmy mammoths.