MOSCOW - The well-preserved carcass of a 10,000-year-old baby mammoth has been unearthed in the northern Siberian permafrost, a discovery scientists said could help in climate change studies.
The 4-foot gray-and-brown carcass, discovered in May by a reindeer herder in the Yamal-Nenets region, has its trunk and eyes virtually intact and even some fur remaining, said Alexei Tikhonov, deputy director of the Russian Academy of SciencesÂ’ Zoological Institute.
The animalÂ’s tail and ear were apparently bitten off, he said.
“The mammoth is an animal that you look at, and you see that there is an entire epoch behind it, a huge time period when climate was changing,” he said in comments broadcast last week.
“And of course when we talk about climate change, we must use the knowledge that we will get from them (mammoths).”
Scientists believe mammoths lived from 4.8 million years ago to around 4,000 years ago.
Studies suggest climate change or overkill by human hunters as possible reasons leading to their extinction.
Tikhonov said the mammoth would be sent to an institute in Japan for further study.
In other news.......
CANBERRA, Australia - One of the largest giant squid ever found has washed up on a remote Australian beach, sparking a race against time by scientists to examine the rarely seen deep-ocean creature.
The squid, the mantle or main body of which measured 6.5 feet-long, was found by a walker late on Tuesday on Ocean Beach, near Strahan, on the western coast of island state Tasmania.
“It’s a whopper,” Tasmanian Museum senior curator Genefor Walker-Smith told local media on Wednesday. “The main mantle is about one meter across and its total length is about eight meters.”
Scientists would take samples from the creature, identified by state parks officials as an Architeuthis, which can grow to more than 33 feet in length and weigh more than 606 pounds. The Tasmanian animal weighed more than 500 pounds, Pemberton said.
The tentacles had been badly damaged, so the overall length of the animal could not be determined, a Tasmania Parks and Wildlife spokeswoman said. Park rangers had moved the remains from the water.
Giant squid, once believed to be mythical despite occasional sightings by mariners, feed on fish and other squid. Last year, fishermen off the Falkland Islands caught a complete animal measuring more than 24 feet.
Scientists believe giant squid usually live at ocean depths of between 660-2,300 feet, relying in part on volleyball-sized eyes, the largest in the animal kingdom.
Scientists said giant squid gathered along AustraliaÂ’s continental shelf in cold mid-winter waters to feed on Grenadier fish. The squid were in turn hunted by sperm whales migrating north from the Southern Ocean.
Japanese ocean researchers captured the first ever pictures of a live giant squid in September 2004 off JapanÂ’s Ogasawara Islands at a depth of 2,700 feet.