Meet Lyuba

Lyuba, of course, is the name bestowed upon the baby mammoth that was found a few years ago in the western Siberian tundra. The baby woolly mammoth is thought to be around 40,000 years old (by now) and is thought to have died by drowning at the age of two months. What's so remarkable is Lyuba's state of preservation, almost life-like, with skin and (sparse) hair fully intact. That kind of find is most uncommon. Mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) remnants have been found at many places in Siberia but rarely in that state of preservation. Apart from a sudden death, the female calf must have been buried soon by sediment and/or frozen quickly to become that well preserved. In any case, the permafrost has kept Lyuba and others from decomposing for a few ten thousands of years.