A local Russian boy has come upon the remains of a woolly mammoth, a creature that is estimated to have walked on the earth about 30 000 years ago. After excavation by local paleontologists, it has been described as the second best preserved mammoth ever discovered.

The find happened in the Northern parts of Russia’s Siberia, when an 11-year-old boy came across the remains of some bones and what-not sticking out of the permafrost. Once excavation started taking place, it became clear that it was not just a few remnants, but actually the entire carcass of the animal. It is estimated that the carcass is that of a 15-year-old male.

Because the remains have been locked in a permanent state of frost the preservation has been surreal – the excavation has revealed fur, skin, and even organs, a rare find as these are normally the first to decay. The discovery has also shown that the mammoth had a camel-like hump, a mass of fat allowing it to store energy in the ice-age era.

Speaking to Russia’s Pravda, the deputy director of the Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences Alexei Tikhonov said:

For the first time, it was seen in Paleolithic drawings, and everyone tried to guess why the animals are humped. Scientists believed that it was so because the animals had very large neural spines of the thoracic vertebrae. Now it turns out that it is not true to fact. We can see that this animal was very well adapted to the conditions of the north. The animals were saving fat for winter.

[Source: Pravda.ru]