THIS is the world’s “best preserved” baby woolly mammoth that has been found in a Siberian crater known as the Mouth of Hell.
Nicknamed Yana, the mini mammoth lived more than 50,000 years ago, but is preserved so well that scientists know what killed her.
She evidently suffered a fatal injury to her back during the Ice Age, when she was around one year old.
She was preserved in the permafrost in the Batagai megaslump, a rapidly expanding thermokarst depression in the Yakutia region of Russia, which is visible from space and also known as Gateway to the Underworld.
Of seven baby woolly mammoths ever found, Yana’s body is the most intact, with her trunk clearly visible and “uniquely preserved”.
The “incredible” remains were found this summer but only announced now by Russian scientists.
The mammoth was just 4ft tall at the withers but weighed around 180kg – or 28 stone.
The extinct limbs had been pecked at by ancient sparrows or small mammals, but all the organs remain intact.
Maxim Cheprasov, head of the Mammoth Museum laboratory, North Eastern Federal University, Yakutsk, said: “The examination showed that the head is uniquely preserved, as are all the organs.
“This is very good.
“The trunk, lips, ears, eye sockets are preserved – they were not eaten by predators.
“We have already noticed that the limbs were eaten, possibly by sparrows or small mammals, but the trunk and other parts of the head are uniquely preserved.
“Unfortunately, the back was damaged, as it apparently fell on its back.”
Local people exploring the crater “saw that more than half of the baby mammoth had already melted out of the wall of this sinkhole”.
The rear of the animals was not initially visible, but was retrieved separately and is also preserved.
Detailed tests on the corpse are planned for next year.
The enormous tadpole-shaped crater that revealed the mammoth – also called Batagaika – is 100 metres deep and a kilometre long.
It is the largest permafrost crater in the world, and is expanding due to the frost melting.
As the land falls away, it reveals organic material that had been locked away for tens of thousands of years.
Scientists previously found a perfectly preserved prehistoric baby horse in the crater.
The extinct foal – some 42,000 years old – was from the cold-resistant Lenskaya species, now extinct.
Another consequence of the crater melting is the emission of huge amounts of carbon.
It is estimated that around 5,000 tons of carbon seeps out of the melting ground every year, with potential for increased emissions as the thawing continues.
