Wooly mammoth blood recovered from frozen carcass, Russian scientists say

 

The frozen body of a 10,000 to 15,000 year old mammoth found on a remote island in the Arctic Ocean has yielded a stunning find: blood so well preserved that it flowed freely from the ancient mammal, according to Russian scientists.

Scientists with the Research Institute of Applied Ecology of the North, North-Eastern Federal University, and the Russian Geographical Society announced on Wednesday the amazing news, following the study of the carcass of a female mammoth in good preservation on Lyakhovsky Islands of Novosibirsk archipelago.

'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.

“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,” said Semyon Grigoriev, the head of the expedition and chairman of the Mammoth Museum.

“Interestingly, the temperature at the time of excavation was -7 to – 10 degrees Celsius [19.4 to 14 degrees Fahrenheit]. It may be assumed that the blood of mammoths had some cryoprotective properties.”

The muscle tissue of the frozen carcass was also stunning -- the color of fresh meat, Grigoriev said, totally unlike meat that is centuries old.

More @ Fox