Canadian Gold Miners Find Rare Mummified Baby Woolly Mammoth

File Photo: An artist's reconstruction shows the extinct steppe mammoth, an evolutionary predecessor to the woolly mammoth that flourished during the last Ice Age. (Handout via Reuters)
File Photo: An artist's reconstruction shows the extinct steppe mammoth, an evolutionary predecessor to the woolly mammoth that flourished during the last Ice Age. (Handout via Reuters)
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Canadian Gold Miners Find Rare Mummified Baby Woolly Mammoth

File Photo: An artist's reconstruction shows the extinct steppe mammoth, an evolutionary predecessor to the woolly mammoth that flourished during the last Ice Age. (Handout via Reuters)
File Photo: An artist's reconstruction shows the extinct steppe mammoth, an evolutionary predecessor to the woolly mammoth that flourished during the last Ice Age. (Handout via Reuters)

Miners in the Klondike gold fields of Canada's far north have made a rare discovery, digging up the mummified remains of a near complete baby woolly mammoth.

Members of the local Tr'ondek Hwech'in First Nation named the calf Nun cho ga, which means "big baby animal."

Paleontologist Grant Zazula said the little tyke, which retained its skin and hair, "is beautiful and one of the most incredible mummified ice age animals ever discovered in the world."

"I am excited to get to know her more," he said in a statement.

The baby mammoth's remains were discovered during excavation through permafrost south of Dawson City in Canada's Yukon territory, which borders the US state of Alaska.

The animal is believed to be female and would have died during the ice age, more than 30,000 years ago when woolly mammoths roamed this region alongside wild horses, cave lions and giant steppe bison.

The discovery marks the first near complete and best-preserved mummified woolly mammoth found in North America.

A partial mammoth calf, named Effie, was found in 1948 at a gold mine in Alaska's interior.

A 42,000-year old mummified infant woolly mammoth, known as Lyuba, was also discovered in Siberia in 2007. Lyuba and Nun cho ga are roughly the same size, according to the Yukon government.

It noted that the Yukon has "a world-renowned fossil record of Ice Age animals, but mummified remains with skin and hair are rarely unearthed."



Flights Cancelled to and from Indonesia’s Bali Due to Volcanic Ash

 Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki spews ash and smoke during an eruption as seen from Lewolaga village in Titihena, East Nusa Tenggara, on November 13, 2024. (AFP)
Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki spews ash and smoke during an eruption as seen from Lewolaga village in Titihena, East Nusa Tenggara, on November 13, 2024. (AFP)
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Flights Cancelled to and from Indonesia’s Bali Due to Volcanic Ash

 Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki spews ash and smoke during an eruption as seen from Lewolaga village in Titihena, East Nusa Tenggara, on November 13, 2024. (AFP)
Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki spews ash and smoke during an eruption as seen from Lewolaga village in Titihena, East Nusa Tenggara, on November 13, 2024. (AFP)

Several international airlines cancelled flights to and from Indonesia's resort island of Bali on Wednesday, after further eruptions of a volcano that has spewed ash clouds as high as 10 km (32,808 ft) and forced thousands to evacuate.

Jetstar and Qantas said they had stopped flights to Bali on Wednesday for safety reasons because of volcanic ash, while plane tracking website Flightradar24 showed flights to the island by AirAsia and Virgin were also cancelled.

Bali is Indonesia's top tourist hotspot and is a popular destination for Australian visitors.

The first eruption of the Mount Lewotobi Laki-laki on Nov. 3 in the East Nusa Tenggara province, about 800 km (497 miles) from Bali, killed at least nine people. It has since erupted repeatedly, including multiple times on Tuesday.

From Nov. 4 to Nov. 12, 80 flights in Bali were cancelled, including from Singapore, Hong Kong, and several Australian cities, said Ahmad Syaugi Shahab, general manager of Bali's Ngurah Rai airport.

Indonesia has close to 130 active volcanoes and sits on the Pacific "Ring of Fire", an area of high seismic activity atop various tectonic plates.

The ash column from Mount Lewotobi has reached as high as 10 km and authorities have said sand fall has covered surrounding areas.