30,000-Year-Old Baby Mammoth Found Almost Perfectly Preserved in Canadian Gold Fields

In Canada's Yukon Territory, in the Trondk Hwchin Traditional Territory, a gold miner discovered a mummified infant woolly mammoth.

The First Nation Tr'ondk Hwch'in elders have given the female baby mammoth the name Nun cho ga, which in the Hän language means "large baby animal," according to a news statement from the local administration.

The North American mammoth found mummified in Nun Cho Ga is the most complete specimen.

According to the news release, Nun Cho Ga, who was over 30,000 years old, perished and was preserved in permafrost during the ice period. Along with wild horses, cave lions, and enormous steppe bison, she would have roamed the Yukon.

Geologists discovered the frozen mammoth when a teenage miner in the Klondike gold fields discovered the bones while sifting through mud.

The miner had produced the "most important discovery in paleontology in North America" according to Dr. Grant Zazula, a paleontologist for the Yukon government, according to The Weather Channel.

The baby mammoth was most likely with her mother when it wandered off too far and became mired in the muck, according to Zazula, who spoke to The Weather Channel.

The finding was the "most exciting scientific thing I have ever been part of" according to Professor Dan Shugar from the University of Calgary, who was a member of the team that dug the woolly mammoth.

He detailed how flawlessly the mammoth had been maintained, claiming that it still retained its original toenails, skin, hair, trunk, and even guts, along with the remains of its last meal of grass.

Although Yukon is well known for its collection of ice period fossils, such spotless and well-preserved specimens are uncommon, according to the news release.

"As an ice age paleontologist, it has been one of my lifelong dreams to come face to face with a real woolly mammoth", Zazula wrote in the press release.

"That dream came true today. Nun cho ga is beautiful and one of the most incredible mummified ice age animals ever discovered in the world."

The woolly mammoth, which was about the size of an African elephant, walked the world up until 4,000 years ago. Mammoths were killed for food by early humans, who also utilized their bones and tusks to make art, tools, and homes. The question of whether hunting or climate change caused them to go extinct has split scientists.

This article was originally published by Business Insider.