If everything goes right, the modern world will be able to see what a mammoth looked like in its real flesh and bones.   A fossil unearthed in the northern Yakutsk region in Russia in 2003 has attained fame as the best-preserved remains of the animal so far.  This has given enough grist to Russian scientists to work in collaboration with Japanese scientists to attempt to clone the animal.   The fossil mainly contains the legs of the mammoth in a well-preserved condition.  The cloning is being attempted at the Gifu Science and Technology branch of the Kinki University in Japan.

However, there are concerns.  Though the preservation of the skin, the muscle and the bone marrow is quite remarkable, the main matter required for the cloning, the DNA, might be mutilated.  The age of the fossil is pegged at two to three hundred thousand years.   Can DNA be good enough for cloning after such a long period of time? Cloning also needs an egg from a living animal; the DNA of the desired animal replaces the egg’s DNA.  In this case, the only animal whose egg seems a strong candidate to culminate in a mammoth embryo seems to be the elephant.   An elephant egg will therefore be used for the cloning process.

In a move that seems to be right out of the Steven Spielberg movie adaptation of the Michael Crichton book Jurassic Park , the finding of the mammoth DNA has given new hope to animal technologists from all over the world to resurrect extinct animals and house them in a natural conservatory.  The woolly rhinoceros may be next on the list to be cloned, once the experiment with the mammoth becomes successful.

There are talks about starting a prehistoric safari park if the animals can be produced in a significant number.   These animals could be the first occupants. The deliberations, still at a very preliminary stage, concern a park to be located in northern Siberia, where the climatic conditions would be suitable for these animals of the Ice Age.

The fossil was transported from the Yakutsk region in Russia to Japan in 2005.  The cloning process is now underway.  Several scientific questions, especially some related to the process of evolution, are expected to become clearer with this cloning attempt.  Among other things, scientists desire to know why large animals like the mammoths became extinct.  Answers may improve the quality of life in the present-day world.