Woolly Mammoth Found In Siberia, 39,000-Year-Old Extinct Animal Baby Displayed In Japan, Discovered First ‘Relatively’ Complete Carcass With Fur

A woolly mammoth found in Siberia will be displayed in Japan to the public for the first time this week. The 39,000-year-old, baby woolly mammoth's carcass was discovered almost fully intact, and was dug up in a remote area of Russia in the islands of New Siberia.

According to The Huffington Post, the muscle tissue of the animal is intact, and in a video showing the woolly mammoth being removed from its shipping container in Yokohama, Japan, the carcass has retained a lot of its fur, especially on its legs.

"It's exceptionally rare to find intact mammoths," Kevin Campbell, an associate professor of environmental and evolutionary physiology at the University of Manitoba, told the Christian Science Monitor. "And to find a mammoth that has been conclusively found to have been butchered by humans makes this find exceedingly unusual."

The two-year-old, female carcass is missing pieces of its upper torso and legs. The Huffington Post reports that this could have been the result of prehistoric predators an interaction with ancient humans.

This is the first relatively complete mammoth carcass -- that is, a body with soft tissues preserved -- to show evidence of human association," Dr. Daniel Fisher, curator and director of the University of Michigan's Museum of Paleontology, told Discovery News last year.

The mammoth, nicknamed "Yuka," was unearthed in Russia's Sakha Republic in 2010. She was found with liquid blood in her veins, which according to The New York Daily News is a blessing. Scientists extracted a vial of the blood, which can be used to study the animal's DNA and to use for the possibility of cloning in the future.

The woolly mammoth species went extinct about 4,000 years ago.

Yuka will be on display in Yokohama until September 16. Visitors to the Japanese museum can see Yuka on display, with her trunk fully extended, her legs sprawled, and her orange fur sticking out in tufts. Yuka is also covered in a layer of permafrost. 

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