Russian scientists have unveiled the remains of a 50,000-year-old baby mammoth found in thawing permafrost in the remote Yakutia region of Siberia during the summer.
They say “Yana” – named after the river basin where it was discovered – is the best-preserved mammoth carcass in the world.
Weighing over 100kg (15st 10lb), and 120cm (4ft) tall and 200cm tall, Yana is estimated to have been only one year old when she died.
Before this discovery, there were six such discoveries in the world, five of them in Russia and one in Canada.
Yana was found in Batagaika Crater, the world’s largest permafrost (ground that is permanently frozen) crater, by locals.
The residents were “in the right place at the right time,” said the head of the Lazarev Mammoth Museum Laboratory.
Maxim Cherpasov said that “they saw that the mammoth was almost completely melted” and decided to build a makeshift stretcher to lift the mammoth to the surface.
“As a rule, the part that melts first, especially the stem, is often eaten by modern predators or birds,” he told Reuters.
But “although the forelimbs have already been eaten away, the head is very well preserved”.
The mammoth “probably got stuck in a swamp” and “was thus preserved for several tens of thousands of years,” Gavril Nogorodov, a researcher at the museum, told Reuters.
Yana is studying at Northeastern Federal University in Yakutsk, the capital of the region.
Scientists are now conducting tests to confirm when he died.
This is not the only prehistoric discovery found in Russia’s vast permafrost in recent years. Because long-frozen ground begins to decompose due to climate change.
Just last month, scientists from the same region showed its remains. Partial, mummified body of a saber-toothed catwhich is just under 32,000 years old.
And earlier this year, the remains of a 44,000-year-old wolf were also discovered.