- Gold Miner Discovers Mummified Baby Woolly Mammoth in Canada
- The frozen baby woolly mammoth was named Nun Cho ga, meaning “big baby animal”
- The most well-preserved woolly mammoth yet discovered in North America is in Nun Cho Ga.
In Yukon, northwest Canada, a gold miner unintentionally discovered a nearly flawlessly mummified infant woolly mammoth, estimated to be older than 30,000 years.
With a half mammoth calf named Effie was discovered at an Alaskan gold mine in 1948, it is the most significant and well-preserved woolly mammoth discovery in North American history.
Following its removal from the permafrost in the Klondike goldfields last week, the mummified animal was blessed by Trondk Hwchi elders, a first national organization.
The young female mammoth, Nun Cho ga, was in extraordinary shape and was given the name “large baby animal” in the Hän language.
Nun Cho ga, who was only 140 centimeters in length, was only 30 to 35 days old when she passed away between 35,000 and 40,000 years ago. The Yukon government and the Indigenous organization Trondk Hwchi claimed in a statement that Nun Cho ga would have roamed the Yukon alongside wild horses, cave lions, and enormous steppe bison. It is also the best mummified and first, nearly whole woolly mammoth ever recovered in North America, with most of the skin and hair still present. A piece of grass was discovered in her stomach by the geologists who rescued her, suggesting that the child had been grazing in her final moments.
Even for a region like Yukon, which is known for its extensive fossil record of ice age animals, the discovery is important and uncommon.
She has a trunk. She has a tail. She has tiny little ears. She has the little prehensile end of the trunk where she could use it to grab grass,” said Dr. Grant Zazula, the Yukon government’s paleontologist.
“As an Ice Age paleontologist, it has been one of my lifelong dreams to come face to face with a real woolly mammoth. That dream came true today,” he continued.
