Russian boy finds well preserved mammoth

A boy living in Russia's remote north has found the well-preserved remains of a 30,000-year-old adult mammoth, according to media reports.

The discovery was made near a weather station in the eastern Taimyr region, some 3,000 kilometres north-east of Moscow.

News reports identified the boy as Yevgeny Salinder, son of a couple working at the Sopkarga polar weather station.

Salinder reportedly discovered the animal during a walk. News reports said the remains were that of a male mammoth aged 15 or 16 years, and that its skin, meat, fat hump and organs were extremely well-preserved.

According to the Pravda.ru news website, the last time mammoth remains of such quality were discovered in Russia was in 1901.

Scientists used axes, picks and a steam-blaster to melt the permafrost in an extraction operation lasting a week, the report said.

The mammoth probably died in the summer because it lacked an undercoat and had a large reserve of fat, the report quoted Aleksei Tikhonov, deputy director of the Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, as saying.