Saturday, July 21, 2007

10.000 years old baby mammoth

10000 year-old siberia baby mammoth The perfectly mummified woolly mammoth, a female who died at the age of six months, was named "Lyuba" after the wife of reindeer breeder and hunter Yuri Khudi who found her in Russia's Arctic Yamalo-Nenetsk region.

Weighing 50 kg (110 lb), and measuring 85 centimeters high and 130 centimeters from trunk to tail, Lyuba who died at least 10,000 years ago during the last Ice Age, is roughly the same size as a large dog.

Lyuba will be shipped to School of Medicine, Jikei University in Japan to undergo three-dimensional computer mapping of her body. The mammoth will then return to St Petersburg for an autopsy before being put on display in Salekhard.

The discovery of the baby mammoth preserved in the Russian permafrost gives researchers their best chance yet to build a genetic map of a species extinct since the Ice Age.

10000 year-old siberia baby mammoth Sources: Dailymail & Reuters

No comments: