The year 1901 provided a unique opportunity to make a first-hand scientific study of a mammoth that had then recently been exposed on the banks of the Beresovka River in northeastern Siberia and sixty miles inside the Arctic Circle (Digby 1926; Billow 1981; Pfizenmayer 1939; Sanderson 1960).[22] The mammoth was found frozen in a sitting position in what is technically referred to as muck and located in the middle of an ancient landslide. The flesh and even the eyeballs were so well preserved that the expedition's sled dogs had plenty of fresh meat to eat. Death must have come to this specimen very quickly, because the blood still contained some oxygen and was preserved sufficiently well to establish the relationship to the blood of today's Indian elephant, although distinct anatomical differences would not necessarily classify them as the same species. There was well-preserved food in the mouth and twenty-four pounds of undissolved and identifiable plants in the stomach. One interesting and unexpected feature reported by Herz (1904, 623) was an erect male genital.
