Woolly Mammoth: 39,000-Year-Old Animal Now on Display in Japan

A 39,000-year-old female Woolly mammoth, which was found frozen in Siberia, Russia is seen upon its arrival at an exhibition hall in Yokohama, south of Tokyo, July 9, 2013. (Photo : Reuters)

A woolly mammoth, with the fur still on it, is finally on display after 39,000 years.

The prehistoric baby animal, nicknamed Yuka, is being put on public display in Japan after being shipped from Siberia, Russia, where she was found, the New York Daily News reports.

The body was found trapped in ice on the New Siberian Islands earlier this year. The specimen is thought to me the most well-preserved mammoth specimen ever found even though some parts of the body were exposed to elements and predators.

The body of the ancient animal was shipped, very carefully, in a large crate packed with dry ice. It now laws in an exhibition hall in Yokohama, south of Tokyo, and will be displayed to the public through September. Guests can walk right by the animal and see its orange-brown tufted hair and soft tissue as they imagine it still walking around its icy home tens of thousands of years ago. The animal's trunk is fully extended and her legs are sprawled out on display. It is even covered in a layer of permafrost.

According to the Siberian Times, scientists originally though Yuka was 10,000 years old, but upon doing several tests, they found that the two-year-old mammoth was significantly older and died around 39,000 years ago. Scientists found blood within the body and were able to extract it for the first time. A report that was released in May claims that Russian and South Korean scientists are attempting to extract DNA and possibly bring the species back to life.

"We were really surprised to find mammoth blood and muscle tissue," Semyon Grigoriev, head of the Museum of Mammoths of the Institute of Applied Ecology of the North at the North Eastern Federal University told the Siberian Times. "It is the first time we managed to obtain mammoth blood.?No-one has ever seen before how the mammoth's blood flows."

A majority of woolly mammoths died about 10,000 years ago, but some died later as a small group of the animals lived on Wrangel Island in the Arctic until around 1700 B.C.

This particular find will allow scientists to "dig deeper into the reasons why species became extinct and apply the lessons learnt to the human race, which might be facing its own dangers of extinction," Mammoth expert Norihisa Inuzuka said according to the Daily News.

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Source: http://www.travelerstoday.com/articles/6842/20130711/woolly-mammoth-39-000-year-old-animal-now-display-japan.htm

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