Scientists unveil 50,000-year-old baby mammoth carcass
Russian scientists have unveiled the remains of a 50,000-year-old mammoth calf discovered in melting permafrost in the remote Yakutia region of Siberia during the summer.
They say “Yana” – named after the river basin where she was found – is the best-preserved mammoth carcass in the world.
Yana weighed over 100kg (15st 10lb), was 120cm (4ft) tall and 200cm long and was estimated to be around a year old when she died.
Prior to this discovery, only six similar discoveries had been made in the world – five in Russia and one in Canada.
Yana was discovered by nearby residents in the Batagaika crater, the largest permafrost (permanently frozen ground) crater in the world.
The residents were “in the right place at the right time,” said the head of the Lazarev Mammoth Museum Laboratory.
“They saw that the mammoth was almost completely thawed,” Maxim Cherpasov said, and decided to build a makeshift stretcher to lift the mammoth to the surface.
“Typically, the parts that thaw first, especially the trunks, are often eaten by modern predators or birds,” he told Reuters.
But he added that “although the forelimbs had been eaten, the head was very well preserved.”
Gavril Novgorodov, a researcher at the museum, told Reuters that the mammoth “could have been trapped” in the swamp “and therefore been preserved for tens of thousands of years.”
Yana is studying at Northeastern Federal University in Yakutsk, the regional capital.
Scientists are now conducting tests to determine when it died.
This isn’t the only prehistoric discovery to have been made in Russia’s vast permafrost in recent years – Due to climate change, long-frozen ground is beginning to melt.
Just last month, scientists in the same region demonstrated Partial mummification of a saber-toothed catthought to be less than 32,000 years old.
Earlier this year, the remains of a 44,000-year-old wolf were also discovered.
