MOSCOW — A perfectly preserved woolly mammoth carcass with liquid blood has been found on a remote Arctic island, fueling hopes of cloning the Ice Age animal, Russian scientists said Thursday.
The carcass was in such good shape because its lower part was stuck in pure ice, said Semyon Grigoryev, head of the Mammoth Museum, who led the expedition into the Lyakhovsky Islands off the Siberian coast.
“The blood is very dark, it was found in ice cavities bellow the belly, and when we broke these cavities with a poll pick, the blood came running out,” he said in a statement released by the North-Eastern Federal University in Yakutsk, which sent the team.
Wooly mammoths are thought to have died out about 10,000 years ago. Scientists have deciphered much of the woolly mammoth’s genetic code from their hair, and some think it’s possible to clone them if living cells are found. Grigoryev said the find could provide the necessary material.
