what next a dinosaur? this mammoth alone will be amazing.
Mammoth hopes rest on icy DNA
From Clem Cecil in Moscow
source: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-3-387635,00.html
JAPANESE scientists hope to use parts of a mammoth preserved in the Siberian permafrost to impregnate an Indian elephant with its sperm and clone the extinct animal for display at an Ice Age wildlife park.
Organisers of the planned park are now populating it with species from that time in preparation for the much hoped-for return of the mammoth. Several hundred wild horses have been sent to graze in land set aside for the park in the far North East of Siberia on the River Kolyma.
Musk ox from another part of Siberia have also been imported, and discussions on buying bison have started with Canada.
A hunter discovered two frozen mammoth legs in the permafrost eight years ago, but because of lack of funds the local authorities only visited the site in 1997 and could not afford to excavate. Japanese interest in the find was excited and two universities funded an expedition this month.
The mammoth appears to have been killed by an avalanche which made it tumble on to its rump, and crushed it on to the permafrost between 25,000 and 30,000 years ago.
The science departments from the universities of Kinki and Tifu in Japan, who have sponsored the excavation of the legs, hope to receive Russian permission in the autumn to export fragments of mammoth skin for research.
Mammoths frozen immediately after death are rare gems, as there is a higher chance of their body parts and internal organs being preserved.
The part of the body that the Japanese are most keen to get are the testicles. Finding frozen mammoth sperm would provide a significant boost to any cloning exercise, because sperm preserves well when frozen, even if thawed and refrozen several times.
If impregnating an Indian elephant with mammoth sperm produced young, that offspring would be impregnated with more mammoth sperm and the process repeated in the next generation, producing a creature that was 88 per cent mammoth. The process would take about 50 years. The alternative is to clone the mammoth from DNA found in the soft tissue.
Since the cloning of Dolly the sheep each new mammoth find is seen as a potential step towards the cloning of the extinct creature.
The frozen legs contain well-preserved soft tissue, which has been removed to enormous freezers in the Museum of the Mammoth in Yakutsk in Siberia.
Preservation methods for excavated mammoth remains have improved dramatically in Russia. In 1977 scientists found a whole baby male, “Dima”, in a goldmine by the River Kolyma. It was excavated using water pumps which drenched the tissue beyond recognition, rendering the animal useless for any process of reproduction by insemination or cloning. Russian scientists admit that all the greatest mammoth finds to date have been ruined by crude excavation and preservation methods.
About 100 mammoths have been recovered in Russia, among them the world’s finest museum examples. These include the skeleton of the Adams mammoth, found in Yakutia in 1806, and the Berezovka mammoth, recovered in northeastern Siberia in 1901. This had an erect penis, thought to be because it died of asphyxiation. The stuffed Berezovka mammoth and the skeleton are both on display at the Zoological Museum of St Petersburg.
It is thought that as many as ten million mammoths are buried in the Siberian permafrost. This is shallow in many areas, but because Siberia is so sparsely populated, it is thought that mammoth remains may go unearthed for hundreds of years in more impassable areas.
The big picture
The first mammoths roamed the world about four million years ago.
Mammoths were herbivorous mammals that used their long tusks to forage for food under the snow.
They inhabited Europe, Northern Asia and Northern America and became extinct about 10,000 years ago.
Whether they were wiped out by climate change or by extensive hunting by Stone Age man is under debate.
Mammoths were most similar to Indian elephants anatomically, but in size they were closer to African elephants, at about 9ft in height.
They weighed up to seven tons. Hairy mammoths had hair up to 4ft long and skin 1in thick.
The remains of about 40 mammoths have been found in Northern Siberia and Alaska.
Mammoth hopes rest on icy DNA
From Clem Cecil in Moscow
source: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-3-387635,00.html
JAPANESE scientists hope to use parts of a mammoth preserved in the Siberian permafrost to impregnate an Indian elephant with its sperm and clone the extinct animal for display at an Ice Age wildlife park.
Organisers of the planned park are now populating it with species from that time in preparation for the much hoped-for return of the mammoth. Several hundred wild horses have been sent to graze in land set aside for the park in the far North East of Siberia on the River Kolyma.
Musk ox from another part of Siberia have also been imported, and discussions on buying bison have started with Canada.
A hunter discovered two frozen mammoth legs in the permafrost eight years ago, but because of lack of funds the local authorities only visited the site in 1997 and could not afford to excavate. Japanese interest in the find was excited and two universities funded an expedition this month.
The mammoth appears to have been killed by an avalanche which made it tumble on to its rump, and crushed it on to the permafrost between 25,000 and 30,000 years ago.
The science departments from the universities of Kinki and Tifu in Japan, who have sponsored the excavation of the legs, hope to receive Russian permission in the autumn to export fragments of mammoth skin for research.
Mammoths frozen immediately after death are rare gems, as there is a higher chance of their body parts and internal organs being preserved.
The part of the body that the Japanese are most keen to get are the testicles. Finding frozen mammoth sperm would provide a significant boost to any cloning exercise, because sperm preserves well when frozen, even if thawed and refrozen several times.
If impregnating an Indian elephant with mammoth sperm produced young, that offspring would be impregnated with more mammoth sperm and the process repeated in the next generation, producing a creature that was 88 per cent mammoth. The process would take about 50 years. The alternative is to clone the mammoth from DNA found in the soft tissue.
Since the cloning of Dolly the sheep each new mammoth find is seen as a potential step towards the cloning of the extinct creature.
The frozen legs contain well-preserved soft tissue, which has been removed to enormous freezers in the Museum of the Mammoth in Yakutsk in Siberia.
Preservation methods for excavated mammoth remains have improved dramatically in Russia. In 1977 scientists found a whole baby male, “Dima”, in a goldmine by the River Kolyma. It was excavated using water pumps which drenched the tissue beyond recognition, rendering the animal useless for any process of reproduction by insemination or cloning. Russian scientists admit that all the greatest mammoth finds to date have been ruined by crude excavation and preservation methods.
About 100 mammoths have been recovered in Russia, among them the world’s finest museum examples. These include the skeleton of the Adams mammoth, found in Yakutia in 1806, and the Berezovka mammoth, recovered in northeastern Siberia in 1901. This had an erect penis, thought to be because it died of asphyxiation. The stuffed Berezovka mammoth and the skeleton are both on display at the Zoological Museum of St Petersburg.
It is thought that as many as ten million mammoths are buried in the Siberian permafrost. This is shallow in many areas, but because Siberia is so sparsely populated, it is thought that mammoth remains may go unearthed for hundreds of years in more impassable areas.
The big picture
The first mammoths roamed the world about four million years ago.
Mammoths were herbivorous mammals that used their long tusks to forage for food under the snow.
They inhabited Europe, Northern Asia and Northern America and became extinct about 10,000 years ago.
Whether they were wiped out by climate change or by extensive hunting by Stone Age man is under debate.
Mammoths were most similar to Indian elephants anatomically, but in size they were closer to African elephants, at about 9ft in height.
They weighed up to seven tons. Hairy mammoths had hair up to 4ft long and skin 1in thick.
The remains of about 40 mammoths have been found in Northern Siberia and Alaska.
