Canada's perfectly preserved mammoth - 18th July 2022

A whole frozen baby woolly mammoth has been discovered in the ice of north-western Canada. The mummified ice age mammoth's estimated to be more than 30,000 years old.

The discovery was made by gold miners in the Yukon's Klondike region, who were digging through the permafrost. It's the most complete discovery of this kind in North America.

The mammoth had been buried in the land of North America's Tr'ondek Hwech'in First Nation people. The tribe's leaders have named the baby mammoth 'Nun cho ga' in the tribe's Han language. The name translates into English as 'big baby animal'.

Grant Zazula, a Yukon palaeontologist, is delighted. He specialises in ice age fossils and always hoped to see a real woolly mammoth. “Nun cho ga is beautiful, and one of the most incredible mummified ice age animals ever discovered,” he said.

Experts have been studying the body, which is of a young female. She's about as large as the 42,000-year-old infant woolly mammoth 'Lyuba', which was discovered in the Siberian permafrost in 2007. Geologists believe that Nun cho ga died and froze during the ice age, over 30,000 years ago.

The Yukon has a world famous fossil record of ice age animals. However, the mummified remains with skin and hair are almost never found. This is the most well-preserved woolly mammoth ever uncovered in North America. The Tr'ondek Hwech'in and Yukon government will work with palaeontologists to learn more about the infant mammoth. They're keen to learn from her about life in the region 30,000 years ago.