Mammoth Joins Media Circus

I saw an intriguing story buried away on page 16 of the Times today.  A baby woolly mammoth that died 40,000 years ago has popped out of the permafrost in such pristine condition it still has mother’s milk in its stomach.  Now Lyuba, as the baby pachyderm is being called is embarking on a global tour of paleantology museums – though we won’t see her at the National History Museum until 2014.

The mammoth was only a month old when she died, sucked into some mud in what is now the Siberian tundra, only to be discovered by some surprised reindeer herders 40,000 years later.

Already, the little mammoth has told researchers much about the speices that they have been unable to glean from fossils.  Including it seems a rather handy store of brown far around the back of the head to help maintain body temperature.

The clay-like sediment that Lyuba so unwisely wandered into has in fact been the secret of her amazing preservation.  Even her eyes are preserved – let alone all the internal organs and structure of the beast.  I can only begin to wonder at the feelings of scientists who have been studying this amazing find.

The revelation last week of the Saxon treasure discovered in Sfaffordshire was amazing enough.  Here was a lint to the ninth century and hints at global trade even back then.  But Lyuba is something different all together – a perfectly preserved body of a creature from a staggering 40,000 years ago.  An animal that has been extinct for 10,000 years.  They must have felt in total awe!

It got me thinking – what else must be out there just waiting for a bit of global warming to reveal it’s hidden secrets?  I remember reading that frozen bacteria as old as 100,000 years have been brought back to life.  I doubt that Lyuba will be skipping around any time soon – but I suspect that scientist have already DNA profiled her – and if she is close to modern day elephants… well let’s just say Jurassic Park may be closer than we think.