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42,000 year-old baby mammoth on display in Chicago

04 March 2010 21:49 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. Some 42,000 years after scientists say she fell into mud near a river and suffocated to death, an intact baby woolly mammoth from the Ice Age is to go on display for the first time in the United States at The Field Museum, APA reports citing Associated Press.

In the exhibit that opens Friday, visitors can see the folds and creases in Lyubaâ€™s (pronounced Lee-OO-bah) skin, the bottom of her foot and small patches of hair on her ear and leg. At 45 inches long, Lyuba weighs about 92 pounds and if fully grown could have measured 8 feet tall at her shoulder and weighed between 3 and 4 tons, Fisher said.

Experts say the baby mammoth remained well-preserved because she was frozen in permafrost for thousands of years. Fisher also said her body was colonized by naturally occurring bacteria that produced lactic acid, which kept her body "pickled."

Skwerski calls the baby mammoth a "singular object" and says she has been valuable to scientists around the world.

The baby mammothâ€™s true value may be in her ability to bring people closer to human history, the history of the Earthâ€™s climate system and climate change, Fisher said.

The baby mammothâ€™s home institution is the Shemanovskiy Museum and Exhibition Center in Salekhard, Russia. She is the centerpiece of a larger multimedia exhibition at the Field called "Mammoths and Mastodons: Titans of the Ice Age" through Sept. 6.

The exhibit is to travel to other North American cities, including Jersey City, N.J.; Anchorage, Alaska; St. Louis; San Diego; Denver, and Boston.