Posted on 07/10/2007 1:48:34 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
Frozen baby mammoth to be sent to Japan for research
(Kyodo) _ A frozen mammoth found recently in Russia in unprecedented good condition is set to be sent to a Japanese university for examination, several experts told Kyodo News on Friday.
The mammoth, thought to be a six-month-old female, was found in the best state of preservation among all frozen mammoths ever recovered, said the experts.
"The mammoth has no defects except that its tail was bit off," said Alexei Tikhonov, vice director of the Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences. "In terms of its state of preservation, this is the world's most valuable discovery."
The mammoth is expected to be sent to Naoki Suzuki, a professor at Tokyo's Jikei University, for CT scanning in December or later, according to the experts.
The experts, who met Thursday in Salekhard, near the site of the discovery, also decided to send some tissue taken from the mammoth to the Netherlands to help determine when it died.
The mammoth was uncovered in the northern part of western Siberia in May after a reindeer herder found part of its ivory near the Yuribey River. ADVERTISEMENT
Estimated to weigh 50 kilograms and be 120 centimeters in height, it has been named "Lyuba" after the herder's wife.
According to Tikhonov, some Japanese research institutes are equipped with large-scale CT scanners and have examined two mammoths sent from Russia in the past.
Suzuki, speaking from Tokyo, said images taken by the CT scanners would be used to recreate by computer the inside of the well-preserved mammoth, "providing an unprecedented opportunity to obtain anatomically important data."
Mammoths, which first appeared as long as 4.8 million years ago, have been extinct for thousands of years.
Ping!
BC says she’s a hottie. No ice necessary, neither.
He wasn’t very fuzzy, was he?
I wish they would clone a couple already. I am expecting to see a full grown wolly mammoth in my lifetime.
Estimated to weigh 50 kilograms and be 120 centimeters in height, it has been named "Lyuba" after the herder's wife.
Many American women wouldn't take too well to having their name applied to an animal resembling an elephant.
Where’s the Helen Thomas pic?
Rosie there looks cold and stiff.. much stiffer than she usually looks on film!
She likely died of frostbite for lack of her fur coat.
What kind of event must have occurred for the mammoth to be
preserved like that? Did it fall into an ice cave, or was
it buried in an avalanche? What were mammoths doing around
ice anyway?? Was there a rapid weather change in a previously
warm environment? Had to be very rapid, no?
Very interesting.
Well, it is dead. But it’s not in the middle of the road.
Trent Lott, age 1
See post #1.
trunk down, that is bad luck.
ever seen “ice age 2”? ;)
Actually, There were SUV tracks nearby, causing Global warming which caused melting on the ice sheet and the Mammoth broke through. We should find some of them also under the ice.
barbra ann
I heard it tastes like tough veal.
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