Discovery of 50,000-year-old baby mammoth is a big boon to researchers

A team of scientists has unveiled a baby mammoth that lay almost perfectly preserved for 50,000 years in the now-melting permafrost of eastern Siberia.

A team of scientists has unveiled a baby mammoth that lay almost perfectly preserved for 50,000 years in the now-melting permafrost of eastern Siberia.

The mammoth was a “unique research find,” with scientists “all surprised by its exceptional preservation,” said Anatoly Nikolaev, rector of the Lazarev Mammoth Museum Laboratory at North-Eastern Federal University in Yakutsk in eastern Siberia. The body showed no signs of damage to the head, trunk, ears and mouth, he said.

The scientists said in a news release Monday that the carcass of the baby mammoth, dubbed “Yana” after the Yana River basin where it was found in eastern Siberia in Russia, “is definitely the best-preserved in the world.”

Researchers unveiled the carcass Monday. It was only the seventh baby mammoth carcass discovered globally — six in Russia and one in Canada.

The mammoth is 4 feet tall, weighs about 400 pounds and is less than 6.6 feet long, the news release said.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/mammoth-baby-50000-years-siberia-permafrost-rcna184325

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