Photos show 50,000-year-old mammoth remains found in Siberia

Researchers in Russia on Monday revealed the well-preserved remains of a 50,000-year-old female child mammoth found in permafrost in the Yakutia region of Siberia.

The remains of the mammoth – nicknamed “Yana” after the river in which it was found this summer – are the best-preserved mammoth carcass in the world. Experts said it was one of only seven intact remains ever found.

It is estimated that Yana was only about a year old when she died, weighing more than 397 pounds and measuring about 4 feet 200 centimeters long.

“We were all surprised by the exceptional preservation of the mammoth,” said Anatoly Nikolayev, rector for the North-Eastern Federal University where the carcass is on display.

The mammoth, which looks like a small elephant with a trunk, was found near the Batagaika research station where the remains of other prehistoric animals – horse, bison and lemming – have also been found.

Maxim Cherpasov, head of the Lazarev Mammoth Museum Laboratory in the city of Yakutsk, told Reuters that the fact that the animal's head and trunk survived was particularly unusual.

“As a rule, the part that melts out first, especially the trunk, is often eaten by modern predators or birds. Here, for example, although the forelimbs already eaten, the head is well preserved,” said Cherpasov.

Before this discovery, only six mammoth carcasses had been found in the world – five in Russia and one in Canadasaid the university.

Yakutia is a remote region by the Arctic Ocean. Its permafrost acts as a giant freezer that preserves the remains of prehistoric animals.