Nearly 40,000 years old and in surprisingly good shape, the
carcass of a woolly mammoth has gone on display in Moscow.
![The body of baby mammoth is on display in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2014. The 39,000-year-old baby mammoth is named Yuka, derived from the Yukagir coastline where she was found. Yuka was found four years ago in the Siberian permafrost and was between six and eleven years old when she died. Scientists call Yuka the best preserved mammoth in the history of paleontology. (AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev)](http://l2.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/fKsgvwqxZdWgRGf508OwKA--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTM3NztweG9mZj01MDtweW9mZj0wO3E9NzU7dz02NzA-/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/ap_webfeeds/ab7e2744659bcd2a630f6a706700d677.jpg)
Albert
Protopopov, a researcher from Yakutia, said Yuka's carcass bore traces
indicating that humans hunted for mammoths during the Ice Age. The young
mammoth, aged between six and nine years old when it died, also had
injuries left by an encounter with a predator, he said.
Protopopov
told The Associated Press that Yuka is an estimated 38,000 years old,
while other researchers have put its age at about 39,000.
Yuka
was pulled out of permafrost in a spectacular condition, its soft
tissues and reddish fur well preserved. Even most of its brain is
intact, offering scientists a rare opportunity to study it.
Up
to 4 meters (13 feet) in height and 10 tons in weight, mammoths once
ranged from Russia and northern China to Europe and most of North
America before they were driven to extinction by humans and a changing
climate.
Woolly mammoths are
thought to have died out around 10,000 years ago, although scientists
think small groups of them lived longer in Alaska and on islands off
Siberia.
Researchers have
deciphered much of the woolly mammoth's genetic code from their hair,
and some believe it would be possible to clone them, if living cells are
found.
Protopopov, though,
was skeptical about that. "It is not possible to find living cells as
they don't survive after tens of thousands years," he said.
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