Baby Mammoth Lyuba Goes on Display

The world’s best-preserved baby mammoth is going on show in a premier shopping mall in Hong Kong. Lyuba, a female baby mammoth, was discovered in Siberian mountains by reindeer herder and hunter Yuri Khudi in May 2007. Researchers claimed that Lyuba could have drowned 40,000 years ago when she was just a month old. Lyuba weighs 50kg (110lb), stands 85cm (30in) high and measures 130cm from trunk to tail, roughly the same size as a large dog.

Scientists believe that Lyuba could have died from suffocation when her herd was crossing a river. They think she got stuck in deep mud in the riverbed. The researchers claim that the clay-like substance preserved the mammoth’s body in a near pristine state. Zoologists found undamaged skin and organs, milk from her mother in her stomach, and fecal matter in her intestine.

“She was doing great, very healthy. She just had this terrible misfortune,” Dan Fisher, palaeontologist at the University of Michigan, told the Daily Mail.

Researchers believe that by examining Lyuba body they can gain more insight about the Ice Age and what led to the extinction of mammals. Recently, researchers had discovered another baby woolly mammoth in Siberia, named Yuka.

The carcass of a well-preserved baby mammoth, named Lyuba, is seen during a media preview in Hong Kong April 10, 2012. (Reuters)

Frozen remains of a juvenile woolly mammoth, “Yuka,” were discovered in Siberia. (Reuters)

Lyuba, whose carcass is 40,000 years old, was found by a reindeer herder in Yamal Peninsula in Russia in 2007. (Reuters)

The carcass of the world’s most well-preserved baby mammoth, named Lyuba, is displayed in Hong Kong .The animal was buried for 42,000 years under snow and ice is on a tour across Asia.The carcass was discovered by a reindeer herder in Russia’s Yamal Peninsula in 2007. (Kin Cheung/Associated Press)