The "world's best-preserved" baby mammoth, discovered in Siberia, is 50,000 years old.
A complete newborn mammoth, 50,000 years old, was discovered by Russian scientists
in the Siberian permafrost.
A complete baby mammoth was extracted by scientists from the Siberian permafrost
on the Arctic Circle's edge.
There are only seven in the world.
In the Yakutia, an area that has garnered attention recently for the remarkably
well-preserved carcasses discovered hiding in the ice, Russian scientists
made an incredible find last summer.
This time, they recovered a baby mammoth that was astonishingly frozen
in time for 50,000 years, even if each of the animals recovered was noteworthy
in and of itself.
The globe is home to just six complete carcasses.
The "unique discovery," according to a researcher working on the study,
provides scientists with a unique look at the full animal.
Once the animal starts to thaw out, the head and trunk almost never make
it through the ravenous animal kingdom.
One of the few complete baby mammoths ever discovered on Earth is Yana.
The young mammoth, known by her nickname Yana, was recently displayed
at Yakutsk's North-Eastern Federal University.
"The remarkable preservation of the mammoth caught us all off guard,"
university rector Anatoly Nikolayev told The Guardian.
Yana was able to preserve her head and trunk for 50,000 years in
an amazing condition.
Why that was so uncommon was explained to Reuters by Maxim Cherpasov,
the head of the Lazarev Mammoth Museum Laboratory in Yakutsk.
And it was a very intriguing turn of events.
The portion that thaws out first, particularly the trunk, is typically consumed
by birds or other modern predators.
For instance, the head is remarkably well maintained here, despite the
fact that the forelimbs had already been consumed.
The diminutive elephant originated from the Batagaika Crater, a natural
phenomena influenced by climate change.
According to the Guardian, Yana was discovered frozen in time from a huge
pit that was more than 260 feet deep and continued to deepen as a result
of the climatic change.
She weighed a heavy 240-397 pounds and was taken from her
frozen grave at 4 feet on a makeshift stretcher.
Although they have not tested her age yet, scientists can estimate that she
was little over a year old when she passed away.
The Yakutia: A massive freezer generating news
Temperatures in the isolated Yakutia region, which borders the Arctic Ocean,
can drop as low as -60 degrees Celsius, or -95 degrees Fahrenheit.
It is Russia's coldest region.
The permafrost acts as a strong freezer in such bitterly cold temperatures,
preserving everything within.
Because of the amazing remains from Earth's distant past that can be found there,
this area has recently been making press headlines.
According to The Guardian, scientists have so far obtained a lemming, a horse,
and a bison.
Notably, the Arctic marvel has yielded a 32,000 saber-toothed cat youngster
and a 44,000-year-old wolf carcass—possibly even containing
microbes—according to Reuters.
Yana has now ascended from the depths and joined the distinguished
group of mammoths with complete bodies.
Such a renowned position is held by only a few people worldwide, and what
could Yana, who was only a baby when she died, teach scientists?
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