It is perhaps the autopsy on the oldest living being in history. It performed it of the North-Eastern Federal University scientists from Yakutsk, the city of Siberia, on a mammoth puppy 50 thousand years ago.
It is perhaps the autopsy on the oldest living being in history. It performed it of the North-Eastern Federal University scientists from Yakutsk, the city of Siberia, on a mammoth puppy 50 thousand years ago. The specimen, nicknamed “Yana”, was discovered extraordinarily well preserved because the Permafrost acted as a natural time capsule, preserving its body in most details.
Permafrost is a perennially frozen soil typical of arctic areas. Today he is dissolving at an alarming rhythm because of climate change, but at the same time he is giving us the thrill of seeing almost intact well -preserved prehistoric specimens, from mammoths to the lions of the caves to the ancient wolves. Although these discoveries offer extraordinary intuitions on the ecosystems of the past, they also raise concerns about the environmental and biological risks associated with the dissolution of the permafrost.
The soft fabrics of Yana, the skin, the hair, the internal organs, and even the contents of the stomach, remained intact. Usually, when a carcass that emerged from the permafrost begins to defrost, the Saprofaghi (animals that feed on carrion) begin to devour the soft tissues. But in the case of Yana this did not happen. Only the rear legs are almost entirely missing for birds and small mammals. The preliminary autopsy results suggest that Yana was less than a year when she died drowned in a river or in a swamp. Then his body would have been quickly buried in the sediments that would prevent its decomposition. The analysis of the contents of her stomach revealed traces of the mother’s milk, together with vegetable material and earth. This corroborates the hypothesis that young mammoths, like modern elephant puppies, integrated their diet with small quantities of vegetation.
One of the most exciting aspects of Yana’s discovery is that there is a concrete possibility that we can extract its DNA. Already other mammoth genomes have been sequential to understand how their genes have contributed to unique adaptations of this species, such as the thick fur and the cold resistance of the glacial era. In the background, the dream of using the DNA of the Mammuts to “resurrect” these ice giants through genetic engineering. By inserting sections similar to those of the mammoths in Asian elephant embryos, scientists hope to create a hybrid species that one day could again wander in the Arctic tundra. Although this idea is controversial, Yana’s well-preserved genome is likely to prove to be of help in the efforts of de-extinction of the mammoths. Yana’s autopsy is therefore more than a simple examination of an animal from the past: it is a window on a lost world, that of the glacial era. Every discovery of a well -preserved animal of that era helps us to understand what forces have shaped the ecosystems of that era but also the factors that led to the information of these majestic creatures.
