Young mammoth remains discovered in Siberian permafrost after roughly 50,000 years
(Reuters)
Researchers in Siberia are conducting tests on a juvenile mammoth whose remarkably well-preserved remains were discovered in thawing permafrost after more than 50,000 years.
The creature, resembling a small elephant with a trunk, was recovered from the Batagaika crater, a huge depression more than 80 metres deep, which is widening as a result of climate change.
The carcass, weighing more than 110 kilograms, was brought to the surface on an improvised stretcher, said Maxim Cherpasov, head of the Lazarev Mammoth Museum Laboratory in the city of Yakutsk.
He said the mammoth was probably a little over a year old when it died, but tests would enable the scientists to confirm this more accurately. The fact that its head and trunk had survived was particularly unusual.
“As a rule, the part that thaws out first, especially the trunk, is often eaten by modern predators or birds. Here, for example, even though the forelimbs have already been eaten, the head is remarkably well preserved,” Cherpasov told Reuters.
It is the latest of a series of spectacular discoveries in the Russian permafrost. Last month, scientists in the same vast northeastern region — known as Sakha or Yakutia — showed off the 32,000-year-old remains of a tiny saber-toothed cat cub, while earlier this year a 44,000-year-old wolf carcass was uncovered.
Related stories from around the North:
Canada: NASA ready for takeoff in Yellowknife, CBC News
Greenland: Alarming, above-average ice loss in Greenland due to rising temperatures, Eye on the Arctic
Finland: Experts urge policy overhaul to address climate tipping point risks, Eye on the Arctic
Norway: Polar heat record. July average above 10°C, The Independent Barents Observer
Sweden: Another year of shrinking glaciers predicted in Sweden’s Far North, CBC News
United States: Bursting ice dam in Alaska highlights risks of glacial flooding around the globe, The Associated Press
