Scientists unveil 50,000-year-old baby mammoth carcass

Russian scientists have uncovered the remains of a 50,000-year-old baby found in the remote Yakutia region of Siberia during the summer.

It is said that “Yana” – named after the river where it was found – is the best preserved animal in the world.

Weighing 100kg (15st 10lb), and 120cm (4ft) tall and 200cm tall, Yana is estimated to have been only one year old when she died.

Before this, only six discoveries were made in the world – five in Russia and one in Canada.

Yana was found in the Batagaika valley, which is the world’s largest permafrost valley and people live nearby.

The inhabitants “were in the right place at the right time”, the head of the Lazarev Mammoth Museum Laboratory said.

“They saw that the mammoth was about to melt” and decided to build a stretcher to lift the animal up, Maxim Cherpasov said.

“As a rule, the part that melts first, especially the trunk, is usually eaten by predators or modern birds,” he told Reuters.

But “although the front legs were already eaten, the head is well preserved”, he added.

A researcher at the museum, Gavril Novgorodov, told Reuters that the animal was “probably trapped” in a swamp, and “kept for decades”.

Yana studies at the North-Eastern Federal University in the capital of the Yakutsk region.

Scientists are now trying to determine when it died.

It is not the only famous thing that has been found in the hot places of Russia in recent years – areas that have been frozen for a long time begin to melt due to climate change.

Last month, scientists in the same area showed the remains of slightly, the mutilated body of a sabre-tooth catit is thought to be at least 32,000 years old.

And earlier this year the remains of a 44,000-year-old wolf were also unearthed.