The carcass of an adult dwarf mammoth was discovered during excavations on the Yakut island of Kotelny, Interfax reported, citing Albert Protopopov, head of the mammoth fauna study department of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic. The scientist noted that now it is necessary to find out whether the small growth of the animal is a common phenomenon or indicates an abnormality in development.
“This is not the first finding of small mammoths in Yakutia. The uniqueness of the find is that the whole carcass was caught for the first time,”says Protopopov.
According to him, the message about the find came from local residents. A large expedition, which included several scientists from the Yakut Academy of Sciences, the director of the regional historical park "Russia is my history", Moscow scientists from the Paleontological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences and employees of the Central Siberian Botanical Garden: paleontologists, archaeologists, zoologists, botanists, entomologists, permafrost scientists.
Excavations are scheduled to begin in the next 2019 field season. The first step is to provide scientists with access to the mammoth carcass. It is located in the ground in the intertidal zone, and the remains can only be seen at low tide. The details of the upcoming expedition are now being discussed.
This is not the first find for Kotelny Island; before the pygmy mammoth, well-preserved carcasses of other animals that lived here during the Ice Age were found on it.