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Dodomeki
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Jun 21, 2010
Baby mammoth goes to France
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Khoma - it's unclear whether it's male or female - died aged just six or seven months. It was discovered by a hunter in July 2009 in melting permafrost on the banks of the river Khroma some 2,000 kilometres (1,300 miles) north of Yakutsk near the Arctic Ocean. -- PHOTO: AFP
PARIS - NAME: Khoma. Looks like: A baby mammoth. Age: somewhere above 50,000 years. Discovered in the permafrost of northern Siberia just last year, this rare example of prehistoric monster is on its way to Paris to be analysed, treated for the germs it's harbouring and eventually placed on display. Mammoths - slow, woolly and they didn't eat people - have long had a good press.
Just think Manny the caring mammoth in Hollywood's successful 'Ice Age' movie franchise. But this project may open another window on a distant past that is all too unfamiliar, what life was like for creatures of that time and the environment they shared with early humans. Khoma is the eldest of six baby mammoths found in Siberia over the past 200 years, said Bernard Buigues, a noted French expert on the herbivores who works in close collaboration with Russian authorities.
'It wasn't possible to use carbon 14 to date it, which means it's more than 50,000 years old as carbon-dating isn't effective after that point,' he told AFP. Khoma - it's unclear whether it's male or female - died aged just six or seven months. It was discovered by a hunter in July 2009 in melting permafrost on the banks of the river Khroma some 2,000 kilometres (1,300 miles) north of Yakutsk near the Arctic Ocean. The ice-encased body had been partially eaten by foxes which devoured the trunk and the top of its head. -- AFP
