She may be 42,000 years old, but age hasn't been a barrier for Lyuba the baby woolly mammoth making her first trip to Australia.
Regarded as the most complete and best-preserved mammoth ever unearthed anywhere in the world, Lyuba has arrived in Sydney as the star of a new Ice Age exhibition at the Australian Museum.
Ever since Lyuba was found in 2007, by a reindeer hunter and his three sons in Siberia, the baby mammoth has been a source of intrigue for paleontologists.
"She's a truly remarkable specimen," the Australian Museum's paleontologist Dr Matthew McCurry told AAP.
"I've never seen something extinct that is that well preserved.
"Lyuba is almost complete. She's only missing her tail and ear and some sections of her fur, so she's exceptionally preserved."
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Scientists believe Lyuba was only 30 to 35 days old when she died, possibly after choking on mud after becoming stuck in a river.
"She was found by a reindeer herder and hunter in Siberia and his sons and when they found Lyuba they reported it to the local museum but when the museum went back to pick up the specimen it wasn't there any more ," Dr McCurry said.
"Someone had taken it to the local store and propped it up outside. That's where Lyuba actually lost her ear and her tail because they were eaten off by dogs."
Mammoths were a common animal roaming the northern hemisphere during the Ice Age, having evolved out of Africa.
Most died out about 10,000 years ago, with the last of the dwarf mammoths becoming extinct 4000 years ago.
Scientists remain puzzled about what precisely caused their extinction, with some theories based on environmental factors such as global warming and hunting by humans.
US scientists earlier this year also speculated that the giant herbivores may have disappeared because genetic mutations caused them to lose their sense of smell and transformed their famous lengthy woolly fur into a more silky and shiny covering.
Their closest living relatives are elephants, particularly the Asian elephant.
Lyuba is usually on display at the Shemanovskiy Museum in Yamal, near where she was found in northwest Siberia, and has been loaned to the Australian Museum for its Mammoths - Giants of The Ice Age exhibition, which opens on Saturday and runs until May.
The exhibition also includes rare fossils, life-size replica mammoths, ivory carvings and spears used to hunt the giant tusked beats.
Majestic Mammoths
- Baby mammoths measured about 70cm tall and weighed 70kg
- Adults often lived for 60 years, could grow up 3m tall and weigh five tonnes
- Their hairy coats were up to 1m long, with a a fine wool underlayer
- Mammoths spent 18 hours a day eating, mostly grass
- The last dwarf mammoths were on Wrangel Island, in the Arctic Ocean
- They disappeared between 7000 and 4000 years ago
(Source: Australian Museum)
