14 DAY TRIAL // The 10,000-year-old remains of a female mammoth have recently been uncovered in Siberia.
This particular piece of news would probably not have sparked this much interest if it were not for the fact that blood and well-preserved muscle tissue samples have allegedly been collected from the animal's body.
In fact, it appears that, despite the fact that it got to spend several thousand years trapped inside ice cavities under the mammoth's body, the blood was still liquid.
Thus, when the researchers who made this stunning find picked up a poll pick and used it to break these cavities open, the blood reportedly came gushing out.
Since local temperatures were well below 10 degrees Celsius (50 degrees Fahrenheit), the Russian scientists believe that the mammoth's blood must have had cryo-protective properties.
According to RT, specialist Semyon Grigoriev commented on this incident as follows: “It can be assumed that the blood of mammoths had some cryo-protective properties.”
The researchers suspect that this cryo-protective properties of the animal's blood kept its tissues from freezing.
The same source reports that both the blood, which had a dark color, and the muscle tissue samples collected from this animal have been taken to a laboratory, and that tests meant to determine their make-up will soon be carried out.
The animal's remains were discovered on the Lyakhovsky Islands in the Arctic seas in northeastern Russia.
When the female mammoth was found, the lower part of its body was encased in ice while the upper part was sticking out of the ground.
Specialists estimate that the animal was 50-60 years old when it died, and suspect that it got caught in ice while trying to escape predators.
Now that the news of this major find has hit the public, many cannot help but wonder whether or not scientists could use biological samples taken from this female mammoth to clone it and resurrect the species.