It was found by people living nearby in the Batagayka Crater, the world’s largest permafrost crater.
Residents “were in the right place at the right time,” said the head of the laboratory of the Lazarov Mammoth Museum.
“They saw that the mammoth had almost completely thawed,” and decided to build an improvised stretcher to lift the mammoth to the surface, Maksim Charpasov said.
“Typically, the part that thaws first, especially the trunk, is often eaten by modern predators or birds,” he told Reuters.
But “despite the fact that the front limbs have already been eaten, the head is perfectly preserved,” he added.
Gavril Novgorodov, a researcher at the museum, told Reuters that the mammoth “probably got trapped” in the swamp, and “preserved in this way for several tens of thousands of years.”
She studies at the North-Eastern Federal University in the capital of the Yakutsk region.
Scientists are now carrying out tests to confirm when he died.
This is not the only prehistoric discovery found in the permafrost of Russia in recent years – as the long-frozen earth begins to thaw due to climate change.
Only last month, scientists in the same region showed the remains the partially mummified body of a saber-toothed cat, externalit is believed to be just under 32,000 years old.
Earlier this year, the remains of a 44,000-year-old wolf were also discovered.
