After 39,000 years, a baby wooly mammoth is making her public debut.
The prehistoric creature, nicknamed Yuka, is being put on public display in Japan, after being shipped from her home in Siberia, Russia.
Baby mammoth Yuka was discovered earlier this year in Siberia.
Yuka was found in earlier this year trapped in ice on the New Siberian Islands. Though parts of her body was exposed to the elements and predators, the young animal is thought to be the most well-preserved mammoth specimen known to science.
She has been carefully shipped in a large crate packed with dry ice to an exhibition hall in Yokohama, south of Tokyo, and will be on display until September. Visitors can stroll past the creature and see its orange-brown tufted hair and soft tissue, and imagine it wandering the icy planes thousands of years ago.
The frozen mammoth will be on display from July 13 to Sept. 16.
Yuka was first believed to be 10,000 years old, but subsequent tests showed the two-year-old mammoth was much older, dating to about 39,000 years, according to the Siberian Times.
Scientists were able to extract blood for testing, the first time the extinct creature's blood has been harvested by scientists. According to a May report by the Times, Russian and South Korean scientists are working on extracting the mammoth's DNA to bring the species back to life.
Source:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/worl...icle-1.1395453
