A team of Russian scientists has discovered the remains of a female mammoth with blood and muscle tissue.
Russian scientists have claimed to have discovered a fully-grown female mammoth carcass with blood and well-preserved muscle tissue trapped in ice in Siberia. The researchers found the mammoth blood during the excavation on the Lyakhovsky Islands in the Arctic seas of northeastern Russia.
This new discovery comes as debates wage on to whether the extinct species should be resurrected using DNA. The researchers discovered the blood when a poll pick punctured ice cavities below the belly of the animal.
Semyon Grigoriev, a scientist at the Yakutsk-based Northeastern Federal University, stated, “When we broke the ice beneath her stomach, the blood flowed out from there, it was very dark” and “It can be assumed that the blood of mammoths had some cryo-protective properties.”
The muscle tissue of the animal was also well-preserved and had a natural red color of fresh meat, added the scientist.
Grigoryev said the lower part of the mammoth’s body was trapped in pure ice, helping preserve the muscle tissue. The researchers believe that the mammoth was between 50 and 60 years old when it died and lived from 10,000 to 15,000 years ago.
Scientists have suggested that perhaps the animal fell through the ice, escaping from predators. However, it’s believed that predators still feasted on part of the trapped mammoth.
Foreign experts are expected to see the unique mammoth material in July.
Three adult mammoth carcasses, including the latest discovery of the Yakut scientists, have been found in the history of paleontology. However, despite such a good state of preservation, the scientists have not yet found enough living cells for cloning the species. The latest discovery and its research heralds the possibility of bringing the animal back to life in the future.
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2 Comments
“the scientists have not yet found enough living cells for cloning the species”. Well DUH! The animal has been dead for at least 10,000 years. There would be no living cells. There might be “preserved” cells that could be cloned. Who writes this stuff??? Not someone with very much scientific knowledge, obviously.
My favorite reader is the one that is clearly so much smarter than the writer of the article. Yet they don’t write such articles themselves. Must be a sad existence, to not be able to do, but to critique.