Russian scientists have uncovered the remains of a 50,000-year-old giant animal found in a melting glacier in the remote Yakutia region of Siberia during the summer.
They say “Yana” – named after the river in which it was found – is the best-preserved carcass of a large animal in the world.
Weighing over 100kg (15st 10lb), and measuring 120cm (4ft) tall and 200cm tall, Yana is estimated to have been only one year old when she died.
Before this, in the world there were only six similar discoveries – five in Russia and one in Canada.
Yana was found in the Batagaika crater, the world's largest permafrost (permanently frozen ground) people live near.
The residents were “in the right place at the right time”, said the head of the Lazarev Mammoth Museum Laboratory.
“They saw that the mammoth had almost completely melted” and decided to build a self-replacement structure to lift the giant 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 news agency.
But “although the front legs have already been eaten, the head is remarkably preserved,” he added.
A researcher at the museum, Gavril Novgorodov, told Reuters that the giant animal was “probably trapped” in the swamp, and “that way it was preserved for tens of thousands of years”.
Yana studies at the North-Eastern Federal University in the regional capital of Yakutsk.
Scientists are now conducting tests to determine when it died.
It's not the only historic discovery made in Russia's largest glacier in recent years – as the frozen ground begins to melt due to climate change.
Just last month, scientists in the region uncovered the remains of a tiny, submerged cat, thought to be less than 32,000 years old.
And earlier this year the bones of a 44,000-year-old wolf were also found.
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