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| Incredible: the carcass, which still retains an amazing shape 40,000 years after its death |
The body of the world's most well-preserved baby mammoth has been unveiled at an exhibition in Hong Kong ahead of a grand tour of Asia.
The 3ft beast, named Lyuba, was found in Siberian mountains by a reindeer herder five years ago and is thought to have drowned 40,000 years ago when she was just a month old.
Now her carcass will travel in sub-zero temperatures - in a bid to preserve her - to China, Indonesia, Singapore and Taiwan.
Discovered in 2007, she is thought to have died in a mudslide at a month old.
The mud effectively 'pickled' the baby, who has been named Lyuba, preserving her in a nearly pristine state.
'She was doing great, very healthy. She just had this terrible misfortune,' said palaeontologist Dan Fisher, of the University of Michigan, who is part of the international team researching the find.
Although her woolly coat and toenails have disintegrated, her skin and internal organs are intact.
There were even traces of her mother's milk in her stomach.
The only damage to the mammal are bite marks from the village dogs.
Scientists, based in Siberia, hope that studying the mammoth will help explain what caused mammals from the Ice Age to vanish about 10,000 years ago.
They hope to discover if climate or hunting were the causes of extinction.
© Daily Mail, London |
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