On May 22, 2013, the participants of the paleontological expedition of the Research Institute of Applied Ecology of the North of the North-Eastern Federal University and the Russian Geographical Society returned to Yakutsk. It resulted in a uniquely preserved carcass of a female mammoth found on the Lyakhovsky Islands of the Novosibirsk archipelago.
An adult female mammoth has well-preserved soft tissues. According to the members of the expedition, the state of the tissues of the fossil animal is almost perfect, only the upper part of the body, head and left hind leg are skeletonized. Scientists, having examined the teeth, established the age of the female mammoth - about 50-60 years.
- The fragments of muscle tissue that we found outside the body have the natural red color of fresh meat. Such preservation is due to the fact that the lower part of the mammoth's body lay in almost pure ice, and the upper part was discovered by the authors of the find in the middle of the tundra, and did not melt from the shore. Separately from the carcass, the trunk was found, which is the worst preserved, - says the head of the expedition, head of the P. A. Lazarev of the Institute of Applied Ecology of the North, NEFU Semyon Grigoriev.
- Samples of the animal's blood were taken in test tubes with a special preservative. The blood was very dark in color, it was in the icy voids below the belly, and when we pierced these voids in several places with a pick, it flowed out. It is all the more surprising that the ambient air temperature at the time of excavation was kept at the level of -7 … -10 ºС. It can be assumed that the blood of mammoths had some cryoprotective properties."
In July, Russian and foreign colleagues of the museum are expected to arrive, who have shown great interest in the new find. Samples taken from the carcass were brought to Yakutsk; in the near future, a bacteriological analysis will be carried out for the presence of pathogens of especially dangerous infections.
“It was very important to unearth the mammoth during the cold season, because in summer or autumn the unique find would inevitably thaw out, and the invaluable material for the joint project of NEFU and the Sooam Foundation“Mammoth Revival”could be lost due to thawing and teeth of predatory animals,” says Semyon Grigoriev.
Scientists of NIIPES NEFU dedicated this unique find to the 100th anniversary of the Yakutsk branch of the Russian Geographical Society, one of the organizers of the expedition, and to the 20th anniversary of the Institute of Applied Ecology of the North.