An 11 year-old boy has discovered one of the most exquisitely preserved wooly mammoths ever found.

[SoCalDem]

George Dvorsky
http://io9.com/5948902/an-11-year+old-boy-has-discovered-one-of-the-most-exquisitely-preserved-wooly-mammoths-ever


Russian media outlets are reporting that an 11 year-old boy named Yevgeny Salinder has uncovered the remains of a wooly mammoth that died about 30,000 years ago. After stumbling upon the extinct animal, Yevgeny ran home to tell his parents, who in turned alerted the local paleontologists (well, as local as these things can get in Siberia, anyway). And as their preliminary analysis has revealed, it may be one of the most pristine remnants of a wooly mammoth ever discovered. The remains were found about three kilometers from the Sopkarga polar weather station in Taymyr, Russia, where Yevgeny lives with his parents. The area is in the far north of Russia in the most northern part of the Eurasian continent.

Once the paleontologists started digging around the remains, it became obvious fairly quickly that it wasn't just bits of fragment or a badly decayed carcass, but the entire body of an approximately 15 year-old male that weighed half a ton. And incredibly, they were able to gather well-preserved fragments of its skin, meat, fat — and even several organs.

snip

Preliminary analysis indicates that the mammoth featured a camel-like hump — a fatty deposit that would have made life considerably easier for the ice age-era mammal. This may help to confirm a long standing hypothesis that mammoths did in fact feature such humps. Speaking to Russia's Pravda, the deputy director of the Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences Alexei Tikhonov said that, "For the first time, it was seen in Paleolithic drawings, and everyone tried to guess why the animals are humped. Scientists believed that it was so because the animals had very large neural spines of the thoracic vertebrae. Now it turns out that it is not true to fact. We can see that this animal was very well adapted to the conditions of the north. The animals were saving fat for winter."

snip

[malaise]

1. But but but the earth is only

6,000 years old

Rec

[Fire Walk With Me]

4. Mammoths obviously had time travel.

Whadda we want?
Time travel!
When do we want it?
Irrelevant!

(Or, irrelephant...this is an Occupy marching chant, less than 3,000 years old; it's been carbon dated. And it dated Cindy too.)

[xchrom]

2. Du rec. Nt

[AnotherDreamWeaver]

3. I want to see the tusks...

Thanks for the story, I like hearing about these finds. I think the big freeze must have happened when the poles changed and there was a sudden freezing where they were burried.

[jberryhill]

8. The kid sold the tusks to the Chinese first

He's not stupid.

But it's tough to get the tusks out.

Unless you find the mammoth in Alabama.

[bigbrother05]

10. Thanks, Groucho. nt

[jberryhill]

18. How he got in my pajamas, I'll never know!

[bleever]

5. One step closer to my dream of a pygmy mammoth in my backyard.

[REP]

6. I think a lot of really well-preserved ones were eaten

Seriously. I'll see if I can find/remember the cite ...

edit to add:
Well, here's Cecil Adams on the subject; he's generally low-bullshit.

[Angry Dragon]

11. I saw it on Northern Exposure ............ so it must be true

[Politicalboi]

7. I think Palins helicopter

Flew over Siberia and killed it herself.

[central scrutinizer]

9. this is the anniversary of Sputnik - coincidence?

I think not. The Russkis are pulling ahead in the paleontology race! We must close the woolly mammoth gap.

[PatrynXX]

12. Pravda is still around?

haven't heard that name since the discussion on the movie 2010 at the beginning of the movie. But then again don't hear cool things like this in Russia everyday

[Brother Buzz]

15. Boris Yeltsin shut Pravda down

Out of work employees started their own paper, using the same name. Pravda doesn't do a whole bunch of propaganda these days, but they do give a lot of ink to all the American wackadoodle conspiracy theory stories. I believe Russians love reading all the crap crazy American comes up with.

[sakabatou]

13. Time to clone!

[Spitfire of ATJ]

14. ...speaking of....

[struggle4progress]

16. Much of the contemporary evidence suggests wooly mammoths had humps

[jberryhill]

19. Ah, the late Plush Age, a remarkable wrong turn of technological advance

Sadly, their weapons proved ineffective against those of stone, copper, bronze, and wood.

[AsahinaKimi]

20. First came the

Woolly Mammoth followed by the Plushy Mammoth which by the photo proves they are still around today!

[jberryhill]

21. They were discontinued and worth a fortune now

[AsahinaKimi]

22. wait!! You mean they were...

Gasp.. Steiff ????

[jberryhill]

23. No.. Ty. (Beanie Babies)

[AsahinaKimi]

24. LOL

That would have been my second guess!

[littlemissmartypants]

17. Thank you.

That was fun.

[nc4bo]

25. Way cool!!! Just a bit disappointed there are no enlarged photos :(

I would have loved to see a closeup of the smaller pic!!!

Good job kid and Big Hooray for science!

[grantcart]

26. Children, the winner for today's Show and Tell is Yevgeny Salinder and his pristine mammoth remains.