Russian scientists have revealed the remains of a 50,000-year-old baby mammoth found in thawing permafrost in the remote Yakutia region of Siberia over the summer.
“Yana” – named after the river basin where it was discovered – is said to be the best-preserved mammoth carcass in the world.
Weighing over 100kg (15st 10lb) and measuring 120cm (4ft) and 200cm long, Yana is estimated to have been only around a year old when she died.
Before this find, there were only six similar finds in the world – five in Russia and one in Canada.
Yana was found in the Batagaika Crater, the largest permafrost (permanently frozen ground) crater in the world, by people living nearby.
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” and decided to build a makeshift stretcher to lift the mammoth to the surface, Maxim Cherpasov said.
“As a rule, the part that thaws first, especially the trunk, is often eaten by modern predators or birds,” he told Reuters.
But “although the forelegs have already been eaten, the head is remarkably well preserved,” he added.
A researcher at the museum, Gavril Novgorodov, told Reuters the mammoth was “probably trapped in a swamp” and “preserved this way for tens of thousands of years.”
Yana studies at the Northeast Federal University in the regional capital Yakutsk.
Scientists are currently conducting tests to confirm when it died.
It’s not the only prehistoric discovery found in Russia’s vast permafrost in recent years – when long-frozen ground begins to thaw due to climate change.
Just last month, scientists in the same region revealed the remains of a partially mummified body of a saber-toothed catprobably almost 32,000 years old.
And earlier this year, the remains of a 44,000-year-old wolf were discovered.
