“Through a happy coincidence, a gold digger, a First Nation [les peuples autochtones du Canada]a seasoned paleontologist and a territory can take pride in a staggering discovery”, commence CBC, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation website. The mummified body of a complete baby woolly mammoth was found Tuesday, June 21, by a gold digger in mines in the Yukon Territory, Canada. A first in North America and only the second find of its kind worldwide.
The animal is about 1.4 meters long, a little more than the one found in Siberia in 2007. A quick examination suggests that it is a female, specifies the press release from the territory. “She has a trunk. She has a tail. She has small ears. Its trunk has a small prehensile end that allowed it to tear off the grass”, enthusiastically details Grant Zazula. For this Yukon government paleontologist, who has been working on the ice age in the region since 1999, this discovery is an extraordinary event. When it was made public on Friday June 24, he said:
“I’ve always dreamed of seeing one in person. This week my dream came true.”
“This discovery was made on the traditional territory of the Trʼondëk Hwëchʼin First Nation, detailed CBC. At the start of the week [dernière]in a ceremony, the elders named the fossil Nun cho ga, which means ‘big baby animal’ in the Hän language.”