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| The mammoth, which scientists have nicknamed Buttercup, was found frozen in Siberia in May 2013, and carbon dating of her flesh has revealed that she died 40,000 years ago [Credit: Renegade Pictures/Smithsonian Channel] |
Tests are still being conducted on the blood to see if it will yield a complete genome – the genetic code necessary to build an organism.
Blood and guts
The mammoth (nicknamed Buttercup) was discovered in 2013 on Maly Lyakhovsky Island in northern Siberia and excavated from the permafrost. The flesh was remarkably well-preserved, and oozed a dark red liquid when scientists cut into it.
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| Despite its age, the carcass is the best-preserved mammoth to ever be discovered, and was even oozing a dark red liquid, found to be blood, when it was dug up [Credit: Renegade Pictures/Smithsonian Channel] |
'As a palaeontologist, you normally have to imagine the extinct animals you work on,' said Dr Herridge.
'So actually coming face-to-face with a mammoth in the flesh, and being up to my elbows in slippery, wet, and frankly rather smelly mammoth liver, counts as one of the most incredible experiences of my life.'
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| Dr. Roy Weber, a biologist at Aarhus University in Denmark, holding mammoth blood during autopsy [Credit: Renegade Pictures/Smithsonian Channel] |
The South Korean firm Sooam Biotech Research Foundation is leading the research project.
Life and death of a mammoth
The blood was not the only remarkable finding of the autopsy. Analysis of the mammoth's tusks revealed it was a female who had been through at least eight successful calving events.
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| Insung Hwang, a cloning researcher at the SOOAM Biotech Research Center, with mammoth during autopsy [Credit: Renegade Pictures/Smithsonian Channel] |
Analysis of her teeth show that Buttercup died in her fifties. The molar teeth of mammoths and elephants, which are closely related, are replaced six times throughout their lives. Once the last set wears down, the animal generally starves and dies.
However, it was determined that Buttercup met her end by becoming trapped in a peat bog and getting eaten alive by predators. Despite her brutal death she was incredibly well-preserved, thanks oxygen-free environment of the peat bog and the freezing process.
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| Dr Tori Herridge with a mammoth skull [Credit: Channel 4 Television] |
If we can clone - should we?
The information learnt about the lives of mammoths is exciting in itself, but it is the potential for cloning that has captured the most attention.
However, while we are now closer to the reality of creating a living mammoth than ever before, Dr Herridge thinks that it may not be a good idea.
'I doubt that there are many people in the world who would like to see a real-life woolly mammoth as much as I do. And yet I think cloning one would be ethically flawed,' she wrote in an opinion piece for the Guardian this week.
A major objection to mammoth cloning is the fact that endangered Asian elephant surrogates would be required to birth a live mammoth baby. It is likely that many surrogates would be needed before the first successful birth.
'Does the potential benefit to humanity of cloning a mammoth outweigh the suffering an Asian elephant surrogate mother might experience? I've yet to hear a convincing argument that it does,' wrote Dr Herridge.
'So, why should we clone a mammoth? Because it would be cool to see one? That's not going to cut it, I'm afraid.'
Author: Hayley Dunning | Source: Natural History Museum [November 24, 2014]