Incredible: Baby Woolly Mammoth Found Intact in Canadian Gold Field

Gold miners in 🇨🇦Canada’s Yukon territory have discovered a mummified and largely intact body of a baby woolly mammoth.

The miners uncovered the creature while digging through permafrost, according to a government news release.

The woolly mammoth was found in the Klondike gold fields in the traditional territory of the Trʼondëk Hwëchʼin people.

Elders of the Trʼondëk Hwëchʼin community have named the mammoth Nun cho ga, or “big baby animal” in their language, the release states.

Geologists from the University of Calgary and the Yukon Geological Survey estimate that the female baby mammoth is over 30,000 years old, the release states. It was shielded from decay by the layer of permafrost covering it.

Much of the animal’s hair and skin is intact, making its state of preservation much better than that of other woolly mammoth finds.

The release describes it as the “first near complete and best-preserved mummified woolly mammoth found in North America.”

In the release, government paleontologist Dr. Grant Zazula called the discovery “one of the most incredible mummified ice age 🐾Animals ever discovered in the world.”

Scientists debate when exactly the woolly mammoth went extinct, with some estimating that they died out about 4,300 years ago, according to