Mammoth find: Preserved Ice Age giant found with flowing blood in Siberia

Wow..!

Russian scientists discovered a fully-grown female mammoth with blood and well-preserved muscle tissue trapped in ice in Siberia. The findings come amid debates on whether the extinct species should be resurrected using DNA.

Scientists say they have managed to find mammoth blood during the excavation of a grown female animal on the Lyakhovsky Islands, the southernmost group of the New Siberian Islands in the Arctic seas of northeastern Russia.

The dark blood was found in ice cavities below the belly of the animal. When researchers broke the cavities with a poll pick, the blood came flowing out. The fact surprised them because the temperature was 10C below zero.

"It can be assumed that the blood of mammoths had some cryo-protective properties,” said Semyon Grigoriev, head of the Museum of Mammoths of the Institute of Applied Ecology of the North at the North Eastern Federal University as cited by Interfax news agency.

rt.com...

They have taken a sample of the blood and have said that a bacterial analysis is expected soon. They have estimated the female mammoth to be 50 - 60 years old when it died. And she weighs about a ton..!

I do not know what the peeps of ATS think. They do seem to really want to clone a mammoth. But scientists have not yet found enough living cells for cloning. Despite the good state of preservation of the mammoth.. I do not like idea. It is a strange thought that one day they will be able to bring these gigantic animals back. And when they do the animal is going to be treated like a circus freak...

Peace
Fluff

I'm not completely opposed to cloning the mammoth. However if there is not enough wild area left to keep Elephants alive and unpoached, how could there be a safe place in the wild for mammoth(s) to live?

It would not be proper to bring a species back from extinction, only to live in captivity.

Wow! Super post. S and F.

I kind of agree with you. I don't think we should be playing creator and all that.

It would be nice if science could agree upon the premise that just because science has advanced and these things are possible doesn't mean we should attempt it.

Just my buck fifty.

I have to say, I am completely in favour of bring these creatures back. The opportunity to learn is just too great. There are millions of hectares of uninhabited land that cant have changed from the upper-drias period that much. Surely we could accomodate these creatures. I think that any opportunity to bring something back should be taken, just so we can learn.

Over and out,

cb

Originally posted by fluff007
I do not know what the peeps of ATS think. They do seem to really want to clone a mammoth. But scientists have not yet found enough living cells for cloning. Despite the good state of preservation of the mammoth.. I do not like idea. It is a strange thought that one day they will be able to bring these gigantic animals back. And when they do the animal is going to be treated like a circus freak...

It's a fascinating idea.
I agree with you on the aspect of how we would treat this animal, but I trust that we would have a certain reverence for it that would mean it wouldn't be treated like a chained up bear, it would be in a specially designed enclosure somewhere.

And, as for whether it's "right" or not, I'm of the opinion that if it happens then it's meant to. Ultimately this is evolution, whatever we do on this Earth we are part of the evolutionary process. It might not be right from an "arrogance of Humans" perspective (which is something I often find offensive in the way we treat other species and the environment) but it is a part of the evolution of the Earth and our race.

Interesting thread though

The bones shown in the photo are obviously not from a mammoth, more like a yak or something.

Originally posted by bigyin
The bones shown in the photo are obviously not from a mammoth, more like a yak or something.

Check out the article, there is a full photo of the mammoth carcass after the first photo of random bones. It's actually a greatly interesting picture.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this when you have had a chance to check out the article.

Originally posted by fluff007
Wow..!

Russian scientists discovered a fully-grown female mammoth with blood and well-preserved muscle tissue trapped in ice in Siberia. The findings come amid debates on whether the extinct species should be resurrected using DNA.

Scientists say they have managed to find mammoth blood during the excavation of a grown female animal on the Lyakhovsky Islands, the southernmost group of the New Siberian Islands in the Arctic seas of northeastern Russia.

The dark blood was found in ice cavities below the belly of the animal. When researchers broke the cavities with a poll pick, the blood came flowing out. The fact surprised them because the temperature was 10C below zero.

"It can be assumed that the blood of mammoths had some cryo-protective properties,” said Semyon Grigoriev, head of the Museum of Mammoths of the Institute of Applied Ecology of the North at the North Eastern Federal University as cited by Interfax news agency.

rt.com...

They have taken a sample of the blood and have said that a bacterial analysis is expected soon. They have estimated the female mammoth to be 50 - 60 years old when it died. And she weighs about a ton..!

I do not know what the peeps of ATS think. They do seem to really want to clone a mammoth. But scientists have not yet found enough living cells for cloning. Despite the good state of preservation of the mammoth.. I do not like idea. It is a strange thought that one day they will be able to bring these gigantic animals back. And when they do the animal is going to be treated like a circus freak...

Peace
Fluff

edit on 29-5-2013 by fluff007 because: (no reason given)

There is a lab in Scottsdale, Arizona where I live that is trying to clone a male Mammoth. So now, if we have viable female Mammoth cells, then we can actually create a full zygote and implant it into a modern elephant for degestation.

Originally posted by fluff007
Wow..!

Russian scientists discovered a fully-grown female mammoth with blood and well-preserved muscle tissue trapped in ice in Siberia. The findings come amid debates on whether the extinct species should be resurrected using DNA.

Scientists say they have managed to find mammoth blood during the excavation of a grown female animal on the Lyakhovsky Islands, the southernmost group of the New Siberian Islands in the Arctic seas of northeastern Russia.

The dark blood was found in ice cavities below the belly of the animal. When researchers broke the cavities with a poll pick, the blood came flowing out. The fact surprised them because the temperature was 10C below zero.

"It can be assumed that the blood of mammoths had some cryo-protective properties,” said Semyon Grigoriev, head of the Museum of Mammoths of the Institute of Applied Ecology of the North at the North Eastern Federal University as cited by Interfax news agency.

rt.com...

They have taken a sample of the blood and have said that a bacterial analysis is expected soon. They have estimated the female mammoth to be 50 - 60 years old when it died. And she weighs about a ton..!

I do not know what the peeps of ATS think. They do seem to really want to clone a mammoth. But scientists have not yet found enough living cells for cloning. Despite the good state of preservation of the mammoth.. I do not like idea. It is a strange thought that one day they will be able to bring these gigantic animals back. And when they do the animal is going to be treated like a circus freak...

Peace
Fluff

edit on 29-5-2013 by fluff007 because: (no reason given)

There is a lab in Scottsdale, Arizona where I live that is trying to clone a male Mammoth. So now, if we have viable female Mammoth cells, then we can actually create a full zygote and implant it into a modern elephant for degestation.

reply to post by fluff007

And when they do the animal is going to be treated like a circus freak...

Not a circus freak. A food source. Seriously.

reply to post by fluff007
I had doubts about the RT and went to check it out...it's legit

The Siberian Times says, Blood and muscle from an extinct mammoth is found in Siberia say scientists. The link has a genuine photograph of the big lug too...

The find was made on the New Siberian Islands - or Novosibirsk Islands, off the coast of the Republic of Sakha. Teeth of the creature suggest it was between 50 and 60 years old. Well preserved muscle tissue was also found. Samples of blood had dripped into the ice beneath the the hulk and were frozen for thousands of years. Scientists say they managed to retrieve the mammoth blood in a test tube during an excavation at minus 10C. 'It can be assumed that the blood of mammoths had some cryo-protective properties,' said Semyon Grigoriev, head of the Museum of Mammoths of the Institute of Applied Ecology of the North at the North Eastern Federal University.

Bit confused why the picture used is clearly not a mammoth..?
Flowing blood huh? Now that is interesting.. with this find it won't actually be long until they do clone one.. which would be amazing to learn about these beautiful creatures..

RT could have done a better job with their pictures. Yak bones, and then a baby mammoth picture from a few years ago.....

Anyways, I say go ahead and try to clone these creatures. Im guessing they would be pretty well able to live in areas like Siberia.

This is a great discovery, if true....

I read a National Geographic article last month or so about the income that can be had from Mammoth tusks.

The hunters must dig through ice...and a tusk can bring enough money to feed family for a year.

And on the upper end of it all, a well-skilled set of carvings on the same tusk can bring in a million dollars.

Oh, but look out! What if you can just grow tusks using this DNA?

It would be fascinating to compare the behavior of modern elephants to that of mammoths. I'm definitely for cloning mammoth DNA, if possible.

The problem with cloning anything, however, is that you are getting a very specific set of genes; taken to the extreme, we could, for example, clone a mutant strain and get a terrible misrepresentation of normal mammoth behavior.

Anyways, elephants are f***ing fascinating.

reply to post by kyred


I don't think we're quite there yet, or we could have put an end to elephant poaching a long time ago.

reply to post by bigyin


Lol.. Sorry maybe I should have specified! It was just the image from the article....

But here is a genuine picture of the find......



siberiantimes.com...

reply to post by misscurious


Ok so peeps are not happy with the picture in the OP. Understood but I have maxed out my editing window. Apologies. The picture used is from the article. Here is a mammoth..........



And here is a picture of the find itself....



siberiantimes.com...

reply to post by Kandinsky


No worries...!

I did do a Google search and the sites that came up seemed legit. But thanks for checking for me anyway...
I dislike it if I end up posting a thread with disinformation.

Thank you for the link..

reply to post by Midnight4444

It would not be proper to bring a species back from extinction, only to live in captivity.

I agree with you there. If that is done then they will be playing God. By the time that a baby mammoth has actually been cloned and been born. What is going to be the state of the world then. Like you say there might not be a protected place for them to roam freely...