Canadian gold miners find rare mummified baby woolly "Mammoth"
Miners in Yukon, Canada, stumbled upon an intact and beautifully preserved baby woolly mammoth on June 21, 2022. Geologists suggest the animal was frozen in permafrost during the ice age, over 30,000 years ago.
Miners in the Klondike gold fields of Canada's far north have made a rare discovery, digging up the mummified remains of a near-complete baby woolly mammoth.
The local Tr'ondek Hwech'in First Nation members named the calf Nun Cho ga, which means "big baby animal." Paleontologist Grant Zazula said the little tyke, which retained its skin and hair, "is beautiful and one of the most incredible mummified ice age animals ever discovered in the world."
"I am excited to get to know her more," he said in a statement.
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
The baby mammoth's remains were discovered during excavation through permafrost south of Dawson City in Canada's Yukon territory, which borders the U.S. state of Alaska. 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 alongside wild horses, cave lions, and giant steppe bison. The discovery marks the first nearly complete and best-preserved mummified woolly mammoth in North America. A partial mammoth calf, named Effie, was found in 1948 at a gold mine in Alaska's interior. A 42,000-year-old mummified infant woolly mammoth, known as Lyuba, was also discovered in Siberia in 2007. Lyuba and Nun Cho ga are roughly the same sizes, according to the Yukon government.
It noted that the Yukon has "a world-renowned fossil record of Ice Age animals, but mummified remains with skin and hair are rarely unearthed." The baby mammoth's remains were discovered during excavation through permafrost south of Dawson City in Canada's Yukon territory. The animal is believed to be female and would have died during the ice age, more than 30,000 years ago. A partial mammoth calf, named Effie, was found in 1948 at a gold mine in Alaska's interior.
