Lyuba: Don’t Touch the 40,000-Year-Old Baby Mammoth

Lyuba, the 40,000-year-old mammoth from Siberia
Lyuba, the 40,000-year-old mammoth from Siberia

From National Geographic:

A Nenets boy tentatively examines Lyuba outside Shemanovsky Museum in Salekhard, Siberia. Some of his elders still hold to the Nenets tradition that touching a mammoth, a creature they believe roams the spirit underworld, will bring bad luck.

Yeah, that kid is definitely punk rock. To hell with ancient beliefs and traditions about mammoths roaming the spirit underwold. I’m gonna touch that mammoth if I want to, and you can stop me. The story gets boring from here because it turns out that the mammoth is simply cold. Now you’ve gone and done it. You have awakened the spirit underworld so you could touch something that was no different in texture than a pack of ice cubes. You may want to think about that next time they find a perfectly-intact 40,000-year-old baby mammoth in your village. I wonder where that baby mammoth’s baby momma is. Baby mommath?