Fortunately for the scientific world, it was a well informed reindeer herder of Yamal-Nenets region, Northwest Siberia, who noticed the body parts of an animal sticking out of the snow. He initially thought it was a dead reindeer but on closer examination he realised that it was a wooly mammoth.
Scientists were called in and they confirmed that the four-foot, gray and brown carcass was indeed an amazingly well preserved baby mammoth. The animal had its trunk and eyes virtually intact and even some fur remaining. Only its tail and ear were apparently bitten off. The mammoth is a female and was six-months-old when she died. The baby has been named ‘Lyuba after the wife of reindeer herder.
Refrigerated!
Weighing 50 kg and measuring 85 centimetres high and 130 centimetres from trunk to tail, Lyuba is roughly the same size as a large dog. (It is a common misconception that mammoths were much larger than modern elephants) Scientists have estimated that the animal must have lived about 10,000 years ago and remained buried in the Siberian permafrost soil at below freezing point.
Lyuba has been transported to regional capital Salekhard, where she is now being kept in a special refrigerator. Next she will be taken to Jikei University in Japan to undergo three-dimensional computer mapping. She will then return and be put on display in Salekhard.
Mammoth remains, often bones or scattered body parts, have been found in Europe, Africa, Asia, and North America. They are believed to have originally evolved in North Africa about 4.8 million years ago and became extinct about 4,000 years ago.
Extinction of the mammoth was most probably caused by a combination of factors, such as global warming and the disintegration of landscapes such as light forests with vast open spaces occupied by meadows and forest tundra.
But the actual death of Lyuba must have been more dramatic.
Ice preserves and hence we assume that the animal has remained intact, simply because it was under snow. But it is not as simple a process as that. Scientists say that the animal will preserve only if all the heat from the whole beast is extracted, quickly. Unless there is tremendous cold outside, the stomach of these animals which have thick fur and fat, will remain warm for some time after death. In this period of time decomposition of the contents will happen and the carcass could also rot. But in all frozen finds, even the items of food in the stomach are found to be preserved. For such preservation to happen, scientists say that the temperature must have dropped hugely and suddenly, taking the animal by surprise. The conjecture is that a sudden, freak snow storm that lasted for days on end must have frozen the grazing animal.
