A long-legged baby mammoth that was mummified has been discovered
On a drizzly June morning, Travis Mudry, a miner working in the Klondike goldfields of Canada’s Yukon territory, cut into a wall of permafrost, or perɱaпently frozen earth. To reach the gold deposits hidden in the stream beds, miners must clear away the thick mix of icy soil—a process known as placer mining. Suddenly, a big chunk of frozen earth popped off the wall. Along with the muck emerged something strange: the remains of a dark, shiny animal with short legs. Suspecting he’d found a mummified baby buffalo, Mudry began inspecting the creature, noting its skin, fur and nub of a tail. Then he spotted a trunk. Mudry called his boss, Brian McCaughan, the general ɱaпager and chief operating officer of family-owned gold mining company Treadstone Equipment. Taking one look at the baby animal, which was so well-preserved it looked almost as if it had just died, McCaughan put out an immediate order to stop all work. He snapped some photos of the find and started reaching out t...