Nun Cho Ga

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Nun Cho Ga is a mummified ice age specimen of a woolly mammoth older than 30,000 years (upper Pleistocene) [1] [2]

Contents

Discovery

It was found by gold miners on June 21, 2022, in the Un Klondike area of Yukon in northern Canada. The find site belongs to Trʼondëk Hwëchʼin First Nation. The mammoth baby, thought to be female, was named Nun Cho Ga, meaning "Big Baby Animal" in the Hän language spoken by the Indigenous peoples of the area. It is thought to be the same size as Lyuba, the 42,000-year-old Siberian baby Mammoth found in Siberia in 2007. [3] [4]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mammoth</span> Extinct genus of mammals

A mammoth is any species of the extinct elephantid genus Mammuthus. They lived from the late Miocene epoch into the Holocene about 4,000 years ago, and various species existed in Africa, Europe, Asia, and North America. Mammoths are distinguished from living elephants by their spirally twisted tusks and in at least some later species, the development of numerous adaptions to living in cold environments, including a thick layer of fur.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Beringia</span> Geographical region of Asia and North America currently partly submerged

Beringia is defined today as the land and maritime area bounded on the west by the Lena River in Russia; on the east by the Mackenzie River in Canada; on the north by 72° north latitude in the Chukchi Sea; and on the south by the tip of the Kamchatka Peninsula. It includes the Chukchi Sea, the Bering Sea, the Bering Strait, the Chukchi and Kamchatka Peninsulas in Russia as well as Alaska in the United States and the Yukon in Canada.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Woolly rhinoceros</span> Extinct species of rhinoceros of northern Eurasia

The woolly rhinoceros is an extinct species of rhinoceros that inhabited northern Eurasia during the Pleistocene epoch. The woolly rhinoceros was a member of the Pleistocene megafauna. The woolly rhinoceros was covered with long, thick hair that allowed it to survive in the extremely cold, harsh mammoth steppe. It had a massive hump reaching from its shoulder and fed mainly on herbaceous plants that grew in the steppe. Mummified carcasses preserved in permafrost and many bone remains of woolly rhinoceroses have been found. Images of woolly rhinoceroses are found among cave paintings in Europe and Asia. The range of the woolly rhinoceros contracted towards Siberia beginning around 17,000 years ago, with the youngest known records being around 14,000 years old in northeast Siberia, coinciding with the Bølling–Allerød warming, which likely disrupted its habitat, with environmental DNA records possibly extending the range of the species around 9,800 years ago. Its closest living relative is the Sumatran rhinoceros.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dawson City</span> City in Yukon, Canada

Dawson City, officially the City of Dawson, is a city in the Canadian territory of Yukon. It is inseparably linked to the Klondike Gold Rush (1896–1899). Its population was 1,577 as of the 2021 census, making it the second-largest city in Yukon.

<i>Eupetaurus</i> Genus of mammals

Eupetaurus is a genus of rodent in the family Sciuridae. Members of this genus are known as woolly flying squirrels. They are large to very large flying squirrels found in the highest rocky cliffs near the treeline of the Himalayas and Tibetan Plateau. Due to the inaccessibility of their montane habitat, they are difficult to study.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Steppe bison</span> Extinct species of mammal

The steppe bison or steppe wisent is an extinct species of bison. It was widely distributed across the mammoth steppe, ranging from Western Europe to eastern Beringia in North America during the Late Pleistocene. It is ancestral to all North American bison, including ultimately modern American bison. Three chronological subspecies, Bison priscus priscus, Bison priscus mediator, and Bison priscus gigas, have been suggested.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Columbian mammoth</span> Extinct species of mammoth that inhabited North America

The Columbian mammoth is an extinct species of mammoth that inhabited North America from southern Canada to Costa Rica during the Pleistocene epoch. The Columbian mammoth descended from Eurasian steppe mammoths that colonised North America during the Early Pleistocene around 1.5–1.3 million years ago, and later experienced hybridisation with the woolly mammoth lineage. The Columbian mammoth was among the last mammoth species, and the pygmy mammoths evolved from them on the Channel Islands of California. The closest extant relative of the Columbian and other mammoths is the Asian elephant.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Trʼondëk Hwëchʼin First Nation</span> First Nation band government in Yukon, Canada

The Trʼondëk Hwëchʼin is a First Nation band government located in the Canadian territory, Yukon. Its main population centre is Dawson City, Yukon.

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The mammoth steppe, also known as steppe-tundra, was once the Earth's most extensive biome. During glacial periods in the later Pleistocene it stretched east-to-west, from the Iberian Peninsula in the west of Europe, across Eurasia to North America, through Beringia and northwest Canada; from north-to-south, the steppe reached from the Arctic southward to southern Europe, Central Asia and northern China. The mammoth steppe was cold and dry, and relatively featureless, though climate, topography, and geography varied considerably throughout. Certain areas of the biome—such as coastal areas—had wetter and milder climates than others. Some areas featured rivers which, through erosion, naturally created gorges, gulleys, or small glens. The continual glacial recession and advancement over millennia contributed more to the formation of larger valleys and different geographical features. Overall, however, the steppe is known to be flat and expansive grassland. The vegetation was dominated by palatable, high-productivity grasses, herbs and willow shrubs.

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The history of the Yukon covers the period from the arrival of Paleo-Indians through the Beringia land bridge approximately 20,000 years ago. In the 18th century, Russian explorers began to trade with the First Nations people along the Alaskan coast, and later established trade networks extending into Yukon. By the 19th century, traders from the Hudson's Bay Company were also active in the region. The region was administered as a part of the North-Western Territory until 1870, when the United Kingdom transferred the territory to Canada and it became the North-West Territories.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Woolly mammoth</span> Extinct species from the Quaternary period

The woolly mammoth is an extinct species of mammoth that lived from the Middle Pleistocene until its extinction in the Holocene epoch. It was one of the last in a line of mammoth species, beginning with the African Mammuthus subplanifrons in the early Pliocene. The woolly mammoth began to diverge from the steppe mammoth about 800,000 years ago in Siberia. Its closest extant relative is the Asian elephant. The Columbian mammoth lived alongside the woolly mammoth in North America, and DNA studies show that the two hybridised with each other.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yuka (mammoth)</span> Mummified mammoth carcass

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">De-extinction</span> Process of re-creating an extinct species

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yunnan woolly flying squirrel</span> Species of squirrel

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This page lists significant events of 2022 in archaeology.

References

  1. "Gold Miners Accidentally Discover First Baby Woolly Mammoth in North America". My Modern Met. 2022-07-01. Retrieved 2022-07-04.
  2. "Woolly Mammoth Calf Discovered in Yukon Permafrost | Sci-News.com". Breaking Science News | Sci-News.com. 27 June 2022. Retrieved 2022-07-04.
  3. "Gold miner in Canada finds mummified 35,000-year-old baby woolly mammoth". the Guardian. 2022-06-26. Retrieved 2022-07-04.
  4. "Mummified baby woolly mammoth found nearly perfectly preserved with skin and hair". TimesNow. 27 June 2022. Retrieved 2022-07-04.