How can the discovery of a baby mammoth help scientists study climate changes? What other things can we learn from this long extinct giant creature that is the precursor to the modern elephant? Read on and learn.
Buried in the Sibrian permafrost lies an ancient secret unearthed recently by a reindeer herder in the Yamal-Nenets region. The four-foot gray and brown carcass of a baby mammoth that lived and died ten thousand years ago has its trunk and eyes virtually intact and even some fur remaining.
According to Alexei Tikhonov, deputy director of the Russian Academy of Sciences' Zoological Institute:
“The animal's tail and ear were apparently bitten off.”
It is an exciting discovery for the secrets it may unfold about the period in which the creature lived and died.
“It’s a huge time period when climate was changing…and when we talk about climate change, we must use the knowledge that we get from mammoths,” added Tikhonov.
Scientists believe that mammoths became extinct due to either climate changes or overkill by human hunters. The carcass will be sent to an institute in Japan for further study.
Who knows what they will discover from this find? Not even the Shadow does, this time around.
What do YOU think?
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