Mammoth Exibit at the Royal BC Museum

We recently went to the Royal BC Museum to see the Mammoth exhibit. By That I mean an exhibit about mammoths not a really really big exhibit.

One of the big draws was the remains of a baby woolly mammoth, names Lyuba. She has been dated to be ~40000 years old and was preserved through bacteria in the mud which pickled the remains. There is even patches of the hair on the body! Because it was so well preserved by the mud and subsequently by the technique of the researchers, the case does not need to be refrigerated.

Here is a family tree of the elephant species throughout time. It shows the development and changes that occurred due to environmental, predatory and requirements placed on the species over time.

There were several rooms in the exibit showing bones, life size heads and bodies, interactive booths, informative panels, and short videos explaining the development of the elephants over time as well as to clear up misconceptions. For instance, did you know that the mammoths divided off from modern elephants in the Pliocene era and are not direct ancestors?

It was a worthwhile exhibit to visit and will be gone at the end of December.