Record-breaking 30,000-year-old baby woolly mammoth discovered

A gold miner has made a shocking discovery in Yukon, Canada as a mummified baby woolly mammoth has been found in a record-breaking discovery.

The local government of the region where the fossil was found issued a press release that explains the discovery was made on June 21, 2022, when miners that were working in the Klondike gold fields within Tr'ondek Hwech' in Traditional Territory in Yukon, Canada, were removing permafrost. The fossil is described as being "near-complete", and according to Yukon's local government, the mammoth calf has been named Nun Cho ga, which translates to "big baby animal".

The newly discovered fossil has since been quickly examined, and according to the press release, it was a female mammoth that died during the ice age approximately 30,000 to 40,000 years ago. Notably, the press release states that Nun Cho ga is about the same age as "Lyuba", a 42,000-year-old baby woolly mammoth that was discovered in Siberia back in 2007. Furthermore, Nun Cho ga is now renowned as the best preserved mummified woolly mammoth found in North America.

2

Dr. Grant Zazula, the Yukon government's paleontologist, commented on the discovery and said that the woolly baby mammoth has an intact trunk, tail, ears, eyes, toenails, hair, and intestines. Zazula also explained that the infant likely wandered too far away from its mother and became stuck in the mud, where it then died and was persevered by permafrost.

Notably, woolly mammoth's existed approximately 4,000 years ago and were targets for early humans that would use their tusks and hide for weapons, art, clothing, and tooths. Paleontologists are divided as to why woolly mammoths were driven to extinction, with some researchers saying that human hunting killed them off and other researchers pointing to the ever-changing climate.

2

If you are interested in reading more about this incredible scientific discovery, check out this link here.

In other paleontology discoveries, researchers located what is now believed to be the largest meat-eating dinosaur in Europe - the White Rock spinosaurid.

Read more: Largest meat-eating dinosaur in Europe found, says scientists