MOSCOW, April 3. /TASS Correspondent Yulia Bochkareva/. Yana is the nickname given in Yakutia to a unique find of 2024 - a baby mammoth. The name is a tribute to the powerful northern river. In the summer, residents of the Batagai village found the carcass of an extinct animal: its front part thawed out on the Batagaika Crater-the world's famous thermokarst sinkhole on permafrost. Over years, this sinkhole has been increasing in size and offers surprising paleontological finds. Experts say Yana's geological age is more than 100,000 years.
About the sinkhole
Scientists cannot specify causes of the Batagaika thermokarst sinkhole in Yakutia's Verkhoyansky District. The crater started to appear back in the 1960s and 1970s, and within half a century its width has reached the length of 1 kilometer and the depth of about 100 meters. The edges are unstable due to the growing width. Guesses relate the sinkhole to anthropogenic impacts or to climate change.
Nowadays, Batagaika is a scientific center of the Northeastern Federal University (NEFU) - Yakutia's biggest university. A number of interesting finds have been discovered in the unique area, including the Verkhoyansk horse (2009, age 4,450 years), the Batagai bison (2009, age 8,200 years), a hoofed lemming mummy (2012, more than 50,000 years old), and the Batagai foal Fuji (2018, about 42,000 years old).
Mammoth cubs found in the world
Baby mammoth Dima (1977, the Magadan Region), Masha (1988, Yamal), Lyuba baby mammoth (2007, Yamal), Khromskoy baby mammoth (2009, Yakutia), Yuka baby mammoth (2010, Yakutia) and Nun-Cho-Ga baby mammoth (2022, Canada) have been discovered.
A unique find
Yana is the most recent and, presumably, the oldest find among the six baby mammoths discovered earlier in the world, excluding fragmented remains. It is also the third baby mammoth found in Yakutia. Scientists stress that Yana baby mammoth is one of the best preserved mammoths in the world, adding such cases are extremely rare.
Yana's weight is about 180 kg, and height at the withers is more than 120 cm. Unfortunately, the body is divided into two parts. The front part to the lumbar was the first to melt out, under its weight it separated from the back and fell to the sinkhole bottom. The other part remained in the permafrost for some time, until it also melted out and fell to the bottom.
"The locals, who luckily were on the Batagaika at that time, could see how the baby mammoth's front appeared. They made a stretcher, lifted the find to the surface, placed it into a glacier and informed us. We were negotiating them to obtain this find for research," said Maxim Cheprasov of the Lazarev Mammoth Museum.
The Mammoth Museum was established in 1991 at the initiative of Yakutia's first paleontologist Pyotr Lazarev (1936-2011) as a scientific and cultural center for mammoth fauna, its habitat and for promotion of scientific knowledge. In 1995, it became part of the region's Academy of Sciences, and in 2011 it became part of NEFU.
Before the museum appeared, almost all the finds in Yakutia were taken to scientific institutions outside the region, and now Yakutia has a center for comprehensive research and may display and store local finds in Yakutsk.
Last year, the news about the baby mammoth was a global sensation. The university's Chancellor Anatoly Nikolaev said news about the Yakutsk find had about 19 million views.
"It's a matter luck," he told reporters back then. "Say, a day or two, a week later, if there was no one to notice, then, of course, we would not have seen such a preserved baby mammoth. This is a truly unique find for our university, for the Russian science, for the world."
First discoveries
The carcass was found in June, 2024 at a depth of about 40 m from the surface. "We would like to express our gratitude to those who have found it - to residents of the Batagai village. The front part weighs more than 110 kg. Imagine, at first they had to bring it up to the surface, and then to put it into a glacier," he said. "The Polar Airlines Company was very helpful to have arranged transportation to Yakutsk at the earliest convenience."
In October, the carcass was delivered to Yakutia's capital as soon as anthrax tests were negative. According to the primary sexual characteristics, scientists announced the baby mammoth was a female. The public presentation was in December, 2024.
"A preliminary examination showed that the head preservation was uniquely fine - very well preserved trunk, lips, ears, and eye sockets. We immediately noticed damaged limbs, possibly by birds or small mammals. With the exception for the place where the body fell apart and the back's damaged from the falling, the preservation was exceptional," the scientist said.
The radiocarbon dating of the samples, conducted in Novosibirsk, concluded the mammoth's geological age was more than 50,000 years. Later on, thanks to photographs from the Batagaika, scientists would say the age corresponded to the layer from which it had thawed out - 110-130 thousand years.
Scientists emphasize that every find of the kind brings new information. Yana will be compared with other found mammoths. Experts have noted the small ears, unlike Dima's larger auricles. Yana has a hump with brown fat on the withers, which was previously seen in other baby mammoths.
"I would like to stress baby mammoth has one of the best soft tissue preservations. Thanks to this find, we may obtain new ontogenesis data on those animals, because all the found baby mammoths are of different biological ages. For example, Yuka was 5 to 7 years old, and Dima was 6 to 7 months old. This way we learn adaptive and anatomical and morphological features," he said in conclusion.
Autopsy
An international scientific seminar opened in Yakutsk on March 27, where leading Russian scientists participated in the carcass' autopsy. The study will continue in seven directions. The main goal is to study the anatomy and to provide a comprehensive study of preserved internal organs, including the stomach contents.
The samples will reveal what the baby mammoth ate and in what season it died. After the autopsy, scientists told reporters they had found even shrub stems in the stomach. Test results will be used to reconstruct the natural and climatic conditions of Yana's habitat. Of particular interest are also soft tissues and contents of the mammoth's digestive tract, as samples may show how the mammoth was adapted to the extreme conditions of the North, to diseases and parasites.
Scientists will study brown fat from the hump. "We also noted the baby mammoth had very good subcutaneous fat. Colleagues who study modern animals note that any animal susceptible to disease simply cannot gain fat. Our baby mammoth was well-fed, had the hump, which helped mammoths to survive in harsh conditions, providing a reserve of energy. According to earlier studies, it is partially similar to brown fat, which is typical for animals that hibernate, and to fat that camels accumulate," the expert added.
In April, results of a CT scan of the baby mammoth's head will help to determine more accurately the animal's biological age. Mammoths are aged by the sequence of changes and the degree of tooth wear, as well as by the tusks.
To clone a mammoth
Up to 90% of all unique soft tissue finds have been discovered in Yakutia. As for the fossils of animals with preserved biological fluids, those have been discovered exclusively there. This is due to the unique permafrost conditions, which are most favorable for preservation of paleontological objects and even biological systems.
Chancellor Anatoly Nikolaev has repeatedly noted all researchers dream to see a live mammoth. Yana's studies could be another step towards cloning a mammoth.
Biotechnological research will be based on samples. Professor Hwang Woo-Suk of the UAE Biotech Research Center will study the cells and tissues to isolate viable cells or an intact nucleus from soft tissues for mammoth cloning.
"We can say that the cellular structures, used to revive the mammoth, are not the best, they are highly sublimated, so we realistically do not even hope to find whole cell nuclei in this baby mammoth," Maxim Cheprasov said. "But anyway, the samples have been taken. Professor Hwang Woo-Suk will definitely work with the samples. After he studies them, we will be able to judge the degree of how well Yana baby mammoth's cellular structures have preserved.".