14 DAY TRIAL // A new paper in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology announces the discovery of a mummified bison in a remote corner of Siberia. What's really wacky about this find is that, apparently, the animal lived and died about 9,000 years ago.
As detailed by Dr. Natalia Serduk with the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, Russia, the animal is so well preserved that, when cutting it open, researchers were able to study its brain, its digestive system, its heart and even its blood vessels.
Thus, it appears that, although they have shrunk to a considerable extent over the millennia, the animal's internal organs, which froze after death together with the rest of the body, are otherwise intact. What's more, each of them sits in its proper place in the body.
For the time being, specialists cannot say for sure how and why this animal died millennia ago, EurekAlert informs. Still, seeing how the bison had virtually no fat reserves at the time of death, they suspect that it passed away due to starvation.
Researchers wish to study the mummified bison remains and hope information obtained in this manner will help them gain a better understanding of what life was like in present day Siberia 9,000 years ago. If there's one thing that is sure, that's that this fellow and its neighbors lived in fairly harsh conditions.
Detailing the team's plans for the future, researcher Olga Potapova said, “The next steps to be done include further examination of the bison's gross anatomy, and other detailed studies on its histology, parasites, and bones and teeth.”
“We expect that the results of these studies will reveal not only the cause of death of this particular specimen, but also might shed light on the species behavior and causes of its extinction,” the specialist went on to explain.