Scientists are studying the remains of the mammoth Yuki, they are interested in the DNA of the animal. And it is possible that in the future it will be possible to clone a mammoth, said biologist Albert Protopopov.
The remains of the baby mammoth lay for several thousand years in the ice on the shore of the Laptev Sea. They were discovered in 2010 in the Ust-Yansky ulus of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) by members of the Yukagir community. The mammoth, who was given the name Yuka, has been perfectly preserved, and now it is being studied at the Yakut Academy of Sciences.
Scientists concluded that Yuka died at the hands of an ancient man. Albert Protopopov, the head of the mammoth fauna study department of the Yakut Academy of Sciences, candidate of biological sciences, spoke about this in an interview with Sputnik radio.
“We found artificial cuts in the carcass of Yuki the mammoth. This is a long longitudinal incision, along the back from the sacrum to the head and on the right side in the region of the scapula, a very large oval incision with jagged edges.
And the second moment, the mammoth had no internal organs and meat from the back, and in fact all the bones were taken out. We accepted the working version that Yuka was killed by ancient hunters,”the scientist said.
Albert Protopopov also explained why the mammoth was named Yuka:
“It is named in honor of the granddaughter of the author of the find, the head of the community Yukagir Gorokhov Vasily Grigorievich, his granddaughter is named Yuka. When the baby mammoth was found and it was assumed that it was a girl, he suggested to name her Yuka."
According to the scientist, modern elephants and mammoths are close relatives.
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“They are from the same group of proboscis. They belong to different genera, but, nevertheless, are close relatives. A kinship analysis found that mammoths are closer to Indian elephants than to African ones,”said Albert Protopopov.
The scientist explained what the essence of cloning a mammoth is and when it may be possible.
“The work is in progress. As they say, there are romantics from science. This topic was once raised by the Japanese, they had a mammoth revival program, work is now underway to restore the mammoth genome. I would like to emphasize that in the classical sense of cloning, this is hardly possible. Because the DNA nucleus will not survive for tens of thousands of years in order to carry out cloning.
It is possible that with the improvement of technology there will be a reconstruction of DNA molecules. At the moment it seems fantastic, but in the future, I hope it will become possible,”explained Albert Protopov.