On the Lyakhovsky Islands in Yakutia, scientists recently discovered the remains of a female mammoth, preserved in excellent condition. And today it turned out that liquid blood was preserved in the body of the discovered mammoth.
By the teeth, experts found that the animal died at the age of 60. According to a member of the expeditionary group, only the upper part of the body, the head and the left hind leg were skeletonized in the found animal. And fragments of muscle tissue found outside the animal's body have a natural red color. The phenomenal preservation of the body is due to the fact that the lower part lay in the ice, and the upper part was outside.
Another surprising fact, according to scientists, is the properties of the preserved animal blood. According to experts, the blood was in the belly of the animal, which was hidden in the ice. When scientists in several places broke the ice with a pick, catching the belly of the animal, blood began to flow. It was surprising, because the air temperature at the time of excavation was kept in the region from -7 to -10 degrees Celsius.
The accidentally discovered property of the animal's blood allowed scientists to assume that the mammoth's blood had specific cryoprotective properties. Soon, scientists plan to conduct additional bacteriological examination of animal blood samples.
For clarification, I turned to a researcher at the Moscow Paleontological Museum. Yu. A. Orlov, candidate of biological sciences, who asked not to give his last name.
- The mammoth found in Yakutia has liquid blood. How could it survive for so many years?
- When you cook meat, you take it out of the freezer, which has lain there for two weeks, put it in a bowl, it thaws there, and a liquid colored in the color of blood forms. This is what blood and tissue fluids have become. It flows out because the ice crystals, which are formed when any tissue freezes, break. The intercellular membranes and the contents of the cells, the contents of the muscle fibers - they are essentially large cells, coming out.
- It turns out that this is a natural process?
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- Sure. Only it's not blood.
- What?
- A liquid substance that arose when the carcass was thawed. It is possible that the blood could be stored in large vessels, in the heart cavity, aorta, and inferior vena cava.
- No, the blood came out of the belly.
- Some fluids could be in the abdominal cavity …
- The head of the expedition, Semyon Grigoriev, said that the fragments of muscle tissue found outside the body of the animal have a natural red color. What's unusual about that?
- Carcasses are stored in different ways. It all depends on the conditions under which the primary burial took place. And how long the carcass was on the surface.
- They say that the lower part lay in the ice, and the upper part was outside.
- The lower part may be closer to the natural color - red. And what is thawed will naturally change more strongly.
- Another surprising fact: that blood began to flow out at an air temperature of -7 to -10 degrees Celsius. Is it possible?
- This is really very strange, since any tissue fluids begin to freeze at temperatures close to zero. Therefore, this fact is without comment. Let's see what the Yakut experts have to say. So far, all information comes from the media.
- Scientists have suggested that the mammoth blood had specific cryoprotective properties. What are these properties?
- Cryoprotective properties are what prevents freezing at low temperatures. But this is also strange, because metabolic processes in warm-blooded animals at such a low temperature are practically impossible.
- Will this find open up new possibilities for cloning mammoths?
- Will not open. Cloning mammoths, like finding extraterrestrial intelligence, are solvable problems, but only in principle. In the near future, there is no need to worry about this. Modern scientific knowledge about cloning is skeptical. But this does not mean that these attempts are absolutely pointless. They are useless so far at this level of development of science.