Baby mammoth kept on ice for 10,000 years

Baby mammoth kept on ice for 10,000 years
By Richard Holt
10/07/2007
Telegraph UK

A baby mammoth thought to be the most perfectly-preserved example of its kind has been unveiled in Russia.

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The animal died around 10,000 years ago

The infant is thought to have died around 10,000 years ago and has been kept on ice in the permafrost of north-western Siberia ever since.

The animal's trunk and eyes are still intact and there is even still fur on its body, according to the BBC.

The six-month old female is a little over 4ft tall and dates form the end of the last Ice Age when the extinct animals were already beginning to disappear.

The discovery was made by a man herding reindeer near the Yuribei River on Russia's Yamal peninsula.

An international delegation of experts has carried out a preliminary examination of the animal.

One of the experts, Alexei Tikhonov, from the Russian Academy of Sciences, said: "The mammoth has no defects except that its tail was bitten off.

"In terms of its state of preservation, this is the world's most valuable discovery."

The remains of the animal are now to be sent to Japan for study purposes.

Some scientists hope that at some stage enough well-preserved DNA samples could be obtained to clone a living mammoth.