Buttercup the Mammoth

Natural mummies have been found in a variety of locations around the world; bog deposits or tar pits, deep inside caves, glacier ice and in the permafrost of Alaska and Siberia. A Woolly Rhinoceros was found mummified after it was covered in salty ground water that essentially pickled the carcass, preventing bacteria and microorganisms digesting the flesh by altering the pH of the environment which means that microorganisms cannot survive in these acidic conditions.


The permafrost is also effective as the low temperature prevents the bacteria from respiring by removing any moisture on the carcass through freezing. However, once the mummy is excavated the bacteria become active and decomposition begins.


In May 2013, scientists from the Siberian North-eastern Federal University took an expedition to Maly Lyakhovsky, an island in the far north of Siberia, whilst acting on information that there was a Mammoth in the permafrost. Indeed they did find two tusks exposed and as they excavated the animal they found that it also had three legs intact, most of the body and part of the head and trunk was still attached as well.

Buttercup the Mammoth mummy. Image credit techentice.com

During the excavation, the carcass released a dark red liquid. The carcass still had fresh blood inside it, this was unique as mummies have only yielded dry specks of blood containing no complete DNA.


The researchers took the Mammoth, nicknamed Buttercup, to Yakutsk where a group of experts were to study the specimen for three days before the find was refrozen to prevent rotting. Carbon dating shows that the Mammoth lived around 40,000 years ago, tests on the animal’s teeth reveals that it died between the age of 50 and 60.


Faeces and bacteria in the lower intestines of the animal, reveal a diet of ice age grasses, buttercups and dandelions. Tooth marks on the Mammoth’s bones enabled the scientists to determine how she died, she was eaten alive by predators after becoming trapped in the peat bog that had assisted in her mummification.


More blood was found in the Mammoth’s elbow, analysis of this blood showed that the cells were broken, but some still contained haemoglobin, the protein that carries oxygen within the red blood cell. Unlike humans, the Mammoths had evolved haemoglobin that was more resistant to freezing temperatures.