In a rare discovery, scientists have found an extraordinarily well-preserved carcass of a 10,000 to 15,000-years-old female woolly mammoth, with blood running freely from the ancient mammal, on an island in the Arctic.
"The blood is very dark, it was found in ice cavities below the belly and when we broke these cavities with a poll pick, the blood came running out," Semyon Grigoriev, the head of the expedition and chairman of the Mammoth Museum said.
"Interestingly, the temperature at the time of excavation was -7 to - 10 degrees Celsius. It may be assumed that the blood of mammoths had some cryoprotective properties," researchers said.
The cryoprotective properties of the blood in woolly mammoths could explain how the liquid tissue was preserved through thousands of years.
A cryoprotectant is a substance that is used to protect biological tissue from freezing damage (due to ice formation).
Arctic and Antarctic insects, fish and amphibians create cryoprotectants (antifreeze compounds and antifreeze proteins) in their bodies to minimise freezing damage during cold winter periods.
Paleontological expedition of the Research Institute of Applied Ecology of the North, North-Eastern Federal University, and the Russian Geographical Society found the carcass of the female mammoth in good preservation on Lyakhovsky Islands of Novosibirsk archipelago.
The mammoth soft tissues are well preserved. The tissues of the animal are almost ideal, only the upper part of the body, head and left hind leg were skeletonised, scientists said.
"The fragments of muscle tissues, which we've found out of the body, have a natural red colour of fresh meat. The reason for such preservation is that the lower part of the body was underlying in pure ice, and the upper part was found in the middle of tundra. We found a trunk separately from the body, which is the worst-preserved part, Grigoriev said in a statement.
The scientists examined the teeth and established that the mammoth's age was about 50-60 years.
Researchers collected the samples of the animal's blood in tubes with a special preservative agent.
The mammoth samples were brought to Yakutsk for bacterial examination in order to detect causative agents of especially dangerous infections.
"It was important to discover the mammoth in cold weather, because the unique discovery would melt in summer or autumn, and the priceless material for joint project 'Mammoth rebirth' of NEFU and Sooam foundation could disappear from thawing and wild animals," said Grigoriev.
