9,300-year-old bison mummy uncovered in Siberia

The frozen "Yukagir bison mummy" was found in the Yana-Indigirka Lowland in eastern Siberia.

The research, led by Natalia Serduk of the Russian Academy of Sciences, was presented this week at the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology's annual meeting in Berlin, and they will be published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.

The bison is one of the most complete frozen mummies ever discovered, according to Discovery News. Its preservation has allowed scientists to compare it with modern bison species, as well as those that went extinct in the Pleistocene and Holocene epochs. The scientists discovered that the bison had larger horns than the modern bison, as well as a second hump on its back.

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The scientists performed a necropsy on the bison and suspect it died from starvation at the age of four. The Steppe bison, the mummy's species, went extinct after the Ice Age ended. Researchers plan to study the bison's anatomy, bones, and teeth for other historical clues about the Steppe bison's behavior and extinction.