Most complete mammoth mummies found in Arctic

Two baby mammoths found in the Arctic have been so well preserved that their deaths have been revealed as suffocation from inhaling mud.

The two mammoths, Lyuba and Khroma are the most complete and best preserved mammoth specimens ever found. 

“This allowed us to document the changes that occur as the mammoth body develops,” said Daniel Fisher from the University of Michigan, according to a report by ILF Science. “And since they are both essentially complete skeletons, they can be thought of as the Rosetta Stones that will help us interpret all the isolated baby mammoth bones that show up at other locations.

They lived more than 40 000 years ago and belonged to populations 4800 km apart. Apart from full skeletons the mummies held preserved muscle, fat, connective tissue organs and even clotted blood.

The researchers used computed tomography scans to analyse the data without running the risk of destroying tissue.

The work was published in Journal of Paleontology last week.