Over 30,000-years old rare mummified woolly mammoth found in Canadian gold mine

Wolly Mammoth size: A nearly-perfectly preserved mummified body of a baby woolly mammoth with skin and hair was discovered in the far north of Canada on June 21, 2022. A rare and extraordinary discovery was made by a miner in Klondike gold fields and the female body has since been named in the Trʼondëk Hwëchʼin's Hän language as 'Nun cho ga’, which translates to ‘big baby animal’, as per the Yukon government.

The mummified woolly mammoth was founded by the miner while excavating through the permasoft at Eureka Creek in the Klondike Gold gold fields within Trʼondëk Hwëchʼin Traditional Territory, as per the Government press release.

The press release on mummified woolly mammoth stated, ‘The Discovery of Nun Cho ga marks the first near-complete and best-preserved mummified woolly mammoth found in North America.’

Being part of the recovery of Nun cho ga, the baby woolly mammoth found in the permafrost in the Klondike this week (on Solstice and Indigenous Peoples’ Day!), was the most exciting scientific thing I have ever been part of, bar none. https://t.co/WnGoSo8hPk pic.twitter.com/JLD0isNk8Y

— Prof Dan Shugar (@WaterSHEDLab) June 24, 2022

Mummified woolly mammoth in Canada: Key Points

1. The animal is believed to be female and would have died during the Ice Age, more than 30,000 years ago when Woolly mammoths roamed this region.

2. The discovery also marks the first near-complete and best-preserved mummified woolly mammoth found in North America.

3. A partial mammoth calf, named Effie, was discovered in 1948 at a gold mine in Alaska’s interior.

4. A 42,000 years old mummified infant woolly mammoth, known as Lyuba, was also founded in Siberia in 2007.

Mummified woolly mammoth discovered: What does it look like?

As per the experts, the woolly mammoth has its skin and hair intact and it is estimated to have been frozen during the ice age, over 30,000 years ago.

The woolly mammoth may have roamed the Yukon with the wild horses and cave lions when alive. Palaeontologist Dr Grant Zazula called the find ‘beautiful and one of the most incredible mummified ice age animals ever discovered in the world.’

Over 30,000 years-old mummified woolly mammoth

Dr Zazula while describing the mummified woolly said that she has a trunk, a tail and she has tiny little years. She also has a little prehensile end of the trunk where she could use it to grab grass. She is perfect and she is beautiful.

Woolly Mammoth: Details

1. The woolly mammoth lived during the Pleistocene until its extinction in the Holocene epoch.

2. The woolly mammoth began to diverge from the steppe mammoth about 8,00,000 years ago in East Asia. Its closest extant relative is the Asian Elephant.

3. They were roughly the same size as modern African elephants.

4. The appearance and the behavior of this species are among the best-studied of any pre-historic animal because of the discovery of the frozen carcasses in Siberia and Alaska.