Perfectly preserved woolly mammoth, complete with liquid blood, discovered in Arctic
Russian researchers say they have discovered a perfectly preserved woolly mammoth carcass with liquid blood on a remote Arctic island, fueling hopes of cloning the Ice Age animal. They say the frozen remains of a female mammoth were so well-preserved that blood was found in ice cavities when they were broken up. Semyon Grigoryev, the head of the Mammoth Museum who led the expedition, said Thursday the carcass was preserved because its lower part was stuck in pure ice. He said the find could provide scientific material for cloning a mammoth. Read more
Boy finds intact carcass of 30,000-year-old woolly mammoth
A neighbourhood adventure has led a 11-year-old Russian boy to discover remains of a 30,000-year-old nearly intact woolly mammoth complete with skin, hair, bones and even reproductive organs. Yevgeny Salinder found the remains of the mammoth on Sopochnaya Karga cape in Russia's northernmost peninsula of Taymyr, the Moscow News reported. Read more
Mammoth find in eastern Siberia raises 'clone hope'
The discovery of well-preserved woolly mammoth remains in eastern Siberia has raised distant hopes that the animal could be cloned. A Russian-led team of international scientists found intact cells among remains including hair and bone marrow. Read more
World's First Mammoth Graveyard Discovered In Serbia
The excavation for coal at an open pit mine in Serbia and heavy torrential rain has yielded what is believed to be the world's first collective graveyard of a herd of mammoths. Heavy torrential rain earlier this week revealed the remains of what could be up to six mammoths, at an open pit mine in Kostolac, east of Belgrade not far from a site where two other mammoth remains were uncovered in recent years. Read more
Why are there no more woolly mammoths? The last isolated island populations of these huge beasts disappeared about 4,000 years ago - well after the Pleistocene extinction that wiped out much of the worlds megafauna - but what triggered their demise remains a frustrating mystery. According to the latest study to contribute to the ongoing debate, the last mammoths disappeared after a long, slow decline in numbers rather than because of a single cause. Read more
The smallest mammoth ever known to have existed roamed the island of Crete millions of years ago, researchers say. Adults were roughly the size of a modern baby elephant, standing over a metre tall at the shoulders. Remains were discovered more than a century ago, but scientists had debated whether the animal was a mammoth or an ancient elephant. A new analysis of the animal's teeth suggests it falls closer to the mammoth lineage. Read more
The discovery of a well-preserved juvenile mammoth suggests that ancient humans "stole" mammoths from hunting lions, scientists say. Bernard Buigues and Professor Alice Roberts were part of the team which unwrapped the frozen mammoth, known as Yuka, after its journey from the location where tusk hunters found it in northern Siberia. Scientists have since completed an initial assessment of Yuka. Read more
Mammoths' extinction not due to inbreeding, study finds
The last known population of woolly mammoths did not "inevitably" die out because of inbreeding and lack of genetic diversity, a study suggests. Scientists used techniques normally used to tackle crime scenes to carry out DNA analysis of samples taken from Wrangel Island in the Arctic Ocean. They said that it was more likely that human activity or environmental factors killed off the healthy creatures. Read more