The RNA Inside This Ice Age Mammoth Exposed Something Scientists Didn't Expect

The oldest genetic messenger molecules ever recovered reveal exactly what was happening inside an Ice Age mammoth's body when it died.


READ or SHARE: https://weirddarkness.com/wooly-mammoth-rna/ 

WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2025, Weird Darkness.
#WeirdDarkness, #WoollyMammoth, #AncientRNA, #IceAge, #ScientificDiscovery, #PrehistoricAnimals, #Paleontology, #ExtinctSpecies, #AncientHistory, #ScienceNews

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:11):
The oldest genetic messenger molecules ever recovered reveal exactly what
was happening inside an ice age mammoth's body when it died.
I'm Darren Marler, and this is weird dark news. The
frozen ground in Siberia has been giving up its secrets
for years, mammoth tusks, ancient bones, the occasional skeleton. This

(00:32):
time it gave us something nobody expected to find. Yuka
Gear is a tiny village on the Siberian coast, right
where the land meets the Uluptev Sea. The people who
live there have gotten pretty used to finding mammoth remains.
Their village sits on a ground that's been frozen solid
for tens of thousands of years, layered ice and dirt
from back when willy mammoths were still around. The coastline

(00:54):
erodes a bit every year, and every so often something
washes out of those crumbling cliffs. August twenty ten was different.
The local hunters spotted something hanging over a ledge about
thirteen feet above the beach, not just a few scattered
bones or a tusk, though an entire juvenile wooly mammoth,
still covered in patches of reddish brown fur. They knew

(01:16):
enough to realize this was special, so they contacted Russian
scientists right away. The mammoth got named Yuka, after the
village itself. Getting a mammoth carcass out of remote Siberia
isn't exactly a quick process. Yuka ended up spending the
next two years in what amounts to a natural Wonkian freezer,
a space carved into the permafrost that stays frozen year round.

(01:39):
This part of Russia is so isolated that scientists couldn't
just hop on a plane and pick up the specimen.
The permanently frozen ground acted like a massive deep freeze,
keeping Yuka preserved while arrangements got made. Senya Grigoryev and
his team from the Mammoth Museum in Yakusk finally made
it out to the site in twenty twelve. By then,
coastal Eroja and had taken out more than three hundred

(02:01):
feet of the cliff face, The spot where Yuka had
been buried, frozen solid since dying nearly forty thousand years
ago and mostly washed away into the sea. Love de
Len studies ancient genetics at Stockholm University in Sweden. He
made that same long trip to eastern Siberia in twenty twelve.
Walking into the lab room where they had laid Yuka
out on the table hit him hard. The mammoth had

(02:24):
obviously been dead for a very long time, no question
about that, but the preservation looked almost fake. Reddish brown
furs still clung to sections of skin. The trunk was intact.
Parts of the brain had survived intact. Inside the skull,
some of the muscle tissue still had this pinkish color,
like meat that had been in a freezer. Scientists have

(02:45):
ways of figuring out when something died by measuring how
certain carbon atoms break down over time. Using that technique
on Yuka's bones, they calculated the mammoth had been walking
around Siberia roughly thirty nine thousand years ago. Looking at
the teeth and tusks, they could pin down the age
at somewhere between six and nine years old, just a
kid in mammoth terms. The body told a story, and

(03:08):
not a pleasant one. Deep scratch marks were gouged into
the back, legs and hind quarters. Something with big claws
had gotten to this young mammoth. The wounds matched what
you'd expect from cave lions, and these were not the
lions you see in Africa today. Cave lions during the
Ice Age were massive, built for cold weather, with claws
that could do some serious damage. Whether they killed Yuka

(03:30):
or just found the body and scavenged it afterward, there's
really no way to know for sure. Either scenario works
with the evidence. What's clear is that Yuka's final hours
were not peaceful. The Russian scientists who first examined Yuka
thought they were looking at a female mammoth. Just based
on visual inspection, that seemed like the right call. The
mammoth got transported from that remote village to research facilities,

(03:53):
and Yakutsk then eventually made its way to Moscow. In
October twenty fourteen, Yuka went on display as the best
preserved Siberian mammoth anyone had ever found. Over the following years,
different research teams study the specimen and managed to sequence
Yuca's DNA. They pieced together the complete genetic instructions for
building a wooly mammoth. DNA and RNA work together in

(04:17):
ways that kind of take a minute to wrap your
head around. DNA is like this massive cookbook sitting in
every single cell of your body. Every recipe you might
ever need is in there. Instructions for making muscles, building bones,
growing hair, keeping your heart, beating everything. Your muscle cells
have a complete copy of this cookbook. Your brain cells

(04:37):
have the same complete cookbook. Your liver cells, your skin cells,
they all have the exact same book with all the
same recipes. So if every cell has the same instruction manual,
why don't they all look and act the same. A
muscle cell doesn't look anything like a brain cell. They
do completely different jobs. That's because cells don't use every

(04:58):
recipe in the book. The muscle cells only read and
follow the recipes for making muscle tissue. The brain cells
only pay attention to the recipes for making brain cells.
It's like having this enormous cookbook with twenty thousand different
recipes in it, but depending on what kind of restaurant
you're running, you might only actually cook a few hundred
of those dishes or just a dozen. RNA does the

(05:20):
actual work of following those recipes. The DNA stays locked
up safe in the nucleus of the cell. That's the
master copy, and it never leaves. RNA molecules are these
little messengers that run in read a specific recipe from
the DNA, then carry those instructions out to parts of
the cell that actually build proteins. They're constantly being made,
doing their job, then breaking down and getting recycled. In

(05:43):
a living body, RNA molecules typically last just minutes, maybe
hours at most, before they fall apart and the cell
makes new ones. Dln and colleagues knew that they could
get DNA out of Yucca. That had been done successfully
with other ancient specimens plenty of times. DNA is the
for a molecule, more stable, built to last under the

(06:03):
right conditions, it can stick around for thousands of years. RNA,
that's a different story. Every biology textbook will tell you
that RNA falls apart so fast that finding any in
a thirty nine thousand year old mammoth should be completely
totally impossible. They decided to try anyway. The team collected

(06:24):
tissue samples from ten different frozen mammoths. Yuka included the
whole project felt like throwing money in time at something
that probably wouldn't work. A couple of other research teams
and managed to find ancient RNA before there was some
from a frozen mummy that died about fifty three hundred
years ago, and another team got some from a Tasmanian
tiger specimen that had been sitting in a museum for

(06:45):
one hundred and thirty years. So it wasn't technically impossible
if the preservation was absolutely perfect trying to find RNA
that was forty thousand years old, though Dyalen admitted later
that it seemed like a crazy thing to attempt, a
very high risk with very low odds of success. Mark
Freedlander works at Stockholm University analyzing genetic data. He explained

(07:08):
that finding ancient RNA is not like pulling out intact molecules.
Think about it more like this. Somebody took a book
and shredded it into confetti, soaked the pieces in water,
froze them, thawed them out, froze them again, and did
this over and over for forty thousand years. Now you're
trying to find tiny scraps of paper that still have

(07:28):
a few readable words on them. Then you have to
piece together millions of these microscopic fragments to figure out
what the original pages said. Most of the work happened
on computers, processing massive amounts of data and trying to
figure out which fragments were actually mammoth RNA and which
ones were just contamination from bacteria or other sources that

(07:50):
got in there over the millennia. Out of those ten
mammoths they tested, seven were too far gone The RNA
was just too degraded to make sense of. Three mammoths
gave them enough material to work with Yuca, another one
called Oyamaycon, and a third specimen that got nicknamed Chris Waddle.
Even in those three, most of what they found was random,
broken pieces they couldn't identify. Yuka, though, did give them

(08:13):
something special. The muscle tissue samples contained actual, readable RNA
sequences that they could analyze and understand. The team compared
what they found to the genetic information from Asian elephants,
which are the closest living relatives of willy mammoths. Modern
elephants and willy mammoths are related closely enough that you
can use elephant genetics as a reference point. In Yuca's

(08:35):
preserved muscle tissue, they identify three hundred forty two different
RNA messages, specific instructions for building three hundred forty two
different proteins. They also found nine hundred two other RNA
molecules that don't directly build proteins. These other molecules work
more like control switches. Those control switches turned out to
be some of the most interesting finds. They don't tell

(08:57):
cells how to build proteins. Instead, they tell seals which
recipes to use and which ones to ignore, and how
many copies of each protein to make. Think of them
like our restaurant manager who's got access to that huge
cookbook with thousands of recipes and they're deciding, well, today
we're only making these fifty dishes, and we need extra
portions of this one, but just a small batch of

(09:19):
that one. The team found two completely new genetic control
switches that had never been seen before, not in elephants,
not in any other animal that's ever been studied. These
genetic sequences had been completely unknown to science until they
got pulled out of a forty thousand year old frozen
mammoth muscle. Yuka had more than twenty thousand different genes

(09:40):
twenty thousand different recipes in that genetic cookbook. At the
moment of death, only some of those genes were actually
turned on and making proteins. The RNA gave scientists a
snapshot of exactly which recipes were being followed right then.
It's like walking into a restaurant kitchen in the middle
of a dinner rush and seeing exactly what the cooks
are working on at that precise moment, Which dishes are

(10:02):
on the stove, which ingredients are being prepped, what's about
to go out to the tables. Certain patterns in the
RNA stood out the moment of Melio Marmal Sanchez started
analyzing the data. Sanchez studies genetics at the University of
Copenhagen and he was the one leading this research. What
he found and Yuca's muscle tissue was clear evidence that
the cells were under serious stress. When your muscles go

(10:25):
through extreme stress, running for your life, fighting your way
out of mud, dealing with a serious injury, your cells
start churning out specific proteins to handle that emergency. Its
an automatic response system built into every mammal. The RNA
patterns and yucus muscles showed that emergency response was fully
activated when the mammoth died. The stress proteins were being

(10:46):
made right then in those final moments. This lined up
with what they could see on the body itself, those
deep scratch marks gouged into the back legs. Weren't just
surface wounds. They looked exactly like what cave lions wand
leave behind. Cave lions during the Ice Age weren't like
a lions you see on nature documentaries from Africa. These
were bigger animals adapted to freezing weather with claws built

(11:09):
for bringing down large prey. Maybe they were actively hunting Yuka,
chasing the young mammoth down. Maybe Yuka was already in trouble,
stuck in mud, injured from something else, and the lions
found an easy target. The physical evidence in the body
and the molecular evidence in the cells told the same
story from different angles. Regardless. Those final hours were brutal.

(11:32):
The RNA worked like a timestamp that got frozen in place.
All those cellular processes happening inside Yuka at the moment
of death just stopped mid action and stayed that way
for forty thousand years. Dalen explained it as actually watching
cellular activity from right around when the animal died, not

(11:52):
making educated guesses from bones, not inferring behavior from toothwaar patterns,
actually seeing it at the molecular level, seeing which genes
were turned on, which proteins were being made what the
cells were doing in real time. The research team found
something else they weren't expecting. Some of the genetic material
in those cells could only have come from a Y chromosome.

(12:15):
In mammals, females have two X chromosomes, males have one
X and one Y. When they took a closer look
at the DNA at a double check, they confirmed it.
Yuka had an X chromosome and a Y chromosome. The
mammoth was definitely male. For fifteen years, everybody had been
calling Yuka she Daniel Fisher studies mammoths at the University

(12:37):
in Michigan, and he wasn't particularly surprised by the correction.
The body had taken serious damage from cave lions, possibly
from ancient human hunters. Maybe both. The parts of the
anatomy that would clearly show whether the animal was male
or female had been damaged or were just missing. By
the time scientists first examined the remains, they made their
best guess based on what they could see. The guess

(12:59):
was wrong. The genetics don't lie, though RNA and DNA
analysis together confirmed it beyond any doubt. The research paper
came out in November twenty twenty five in a scientific
journal called Cell. The discovery broke several records, all at once,
oldest RNA ever recorded from anything. Check. First time anybody'd
pulled RNA out of a wooly mammoth. Check, first time

(13:22):
scientists have been able to see direct evidence of which
genes were turned on inside an extinct animal's body. Check.
The conventional wisdom up until now was that RNA just
couldn't survive this long. Freelander set it straight out. Finding
RNA that's forty thousand years old seemed amazingly surprising. Nobody
really thought it'd be possible. The textbooks said otherwise. The

(13:45):
textbooks were wrong. The implications go way beyond just studying
dead mammoths. Though Maria Avula Arcos studies ancient genetics at
the National Autonomous University of Mexico, she wasn't involved in
this study, but she immediately saw where the technique could lead.
It could let scientists to study ancient viruses. Some of
the most dangerous diseases affecting humans aren't DNA based at

(14:07):
all Ebola, COVID nineteen influenza. These are RNA viruses. Their
genetic material is made of RNA instead of DNA, and
they mutate incredibly fast, way faster than DNA based organisms.
If scientists want who understand where these viruses came from
and how they've evolved throughout history, they need to find

(14:28):
ancient samples of them preserved in old specimens. That means
finding RNA from thousands or tens of thousands of years ago.
Before this mammoth discovery, most researchers assumed that was impossible.
RNA breaks down too quickly. The biological molecules just can't
survive that long. Except they can. K had just proved it.

(14:49):
The team ran tests on Yuka looking for RNA viruses.
The young mammoth came up pretty clean, relatively healthy for
an animal that was about to die from cave lion attacks. Specimens, though,
might tell a different story an animal that had a
high viral load when it died, meaning it was sick
with a lot of virus particles in its system. Those
specimens should theoretically contain enough viral RNA to extract and study.

(15:14):
That could help scientists understand how diseases have evolved, how
they've jumped between species, how they've affected animal and human
populations throughout history. Monossa Ragavan studies ancient genetics at the
University of Chicago. She pointed out that these mammoths came
from absolutely perfect preservation conditions, frozen solid in Siberian permafrost

(15:35):
from the day they died until the day they were discovered.
Whether scientists can pull off this same technique with specimens
from warmer climates where you don't get that instant deep
freeze preservation, nobody knows yet. In tropical or temperate regions,
dead animals decompose much faster, the preservations usually much worse.
But Ragavon called this work amazing in terms of breaking

(15:58):
through technical barriers that seemed impossible just a few years ago. Now,
this doesn't mean we're about to start cloning wooly mammoths.
Daylin was very clear about that the specific RNA they
recovered from Yuca mostly dealt with muscle development and function.
Those genetic instructions are basically identical in mammoths and modern elephants.
It doesn't give researchers new information that they'd need for

(16:20):
bringing mammoths back to life through cloning or genetic engineering.
The fact that ancient RNA can be recovered at all
though opens doors nobody thought existed. Beth Shapiro studies evolution
and wasn't involved in this research, but she suggested this
technology could eventually help with de extinction efforts in other ways.
Eras Libram and Aden, who studies genetics at the University

(16:42):
of Texas, called the research a significant step forward. He
was more cautious about predicting whether RNA would become a
major tool in studying ancient life, but he did acknowledge
it's definitely a step in the right direction. For Daylin
and his team, one possibility gets them genuinely excited. If
they can find ancient RNA in mammoth hair follicles, those
little structures in skin where hair grows, they might be

(17:05):
able to figure out exactly which genes created the mammoth thick,
shaggy coat. What genetic switches made mammoth hair grow long
and wooly instead of short and thin like an elephant's.
If scientists could crack that code, they might be able
to recreate that signature mammoth coat on a modern elephant
by activating the right genes. Dalen put it simply, who

(17:26):
doesn't want to know what genes made a mammoth wooly
ucasits in Moscow, now still on display. But the mammoth
represents something different than it did when they first pulled
it out of that eroding Siberian cliff. It's not just
an incredibly well preserved ice age animal anymore. It's a
biological time capsule operating at a level nobody thought possible.

(17:47):
The juvenile male died almost forty thousand years ago on
what's now the coast of the lapt of c Maybe
cave lions were actively hunting him down. Maybe he got
stuck near a shallow pond and the predators found him there.
Maybe ancient human hunters played a role at his death.
There is evidence that humans were butchering mammoths in that
region during that time period. The exact circumstances got lost

(18:10):
somewhere in those forty thousand years. The cliff face where
Yuka was buried as mostly washed away into the sea
by now. Anyway, what we know for certain is that
when Yuka died, something extraordinary happened. The young mammoth froze
so quickly and stayed so perfectly frozen that these fragile
RNA molecules, the ones that normally survive for just minutes

(18:30):
or hours in the best conditions, stayed intact for forty
thousand years. That Siberian primafrost kept Yuka in a state
of suspended animation. Not just the bones and skin and organs,
but at the cellular level, the genetic messages that were
being carried out inside those muscle cells at the moment
of death just stopped mid process and stayed frozen in place.

(18:55):
Readable and waiting science textbooks said this was impossible. Biology
professors taught generations of students that RNA breaks down way
too fast for anything like this to work. The whole
field of genetics operated under the assumption that you would
never be able to study gene activity in extinct animals
because RNA simply doesn't last. Every textbook laid out the

(19:17):
same facts. DNA is stable enough to survive for thousands
of years under the right conditions, but RNA minutes hours
of most gone unrecoverable. Yuka proved all of that wrong.
The mammoth left behind more than bones and fur and
an intact trunk in that remarkably preserved brain, frozen in

(19:38):
the ground near that remote Siberian village, stored in natural
permafrost for nearly forty thousand years. Yuca preserved a molecular
snapshot the exact instructions that were being carried out inside
a living animal's body during its final moments, now readable
nearly forty millennia later. The recipes that were being followed,
the stress responses that were activated, the emergency proteins that

(20:01):
were being churned out as the young mammoth's body tried
desperately to survive whatever was happening to it. The snapshot
changes with scientists that was possible. It opens up entire
lines of research that seemed like science fiction just a
few years ago. It means that under the right conditions
extreme cold, rapid freezing, perfect preservation, these delicate molecular messages

(20:23):
can survive for tens of thousands of years, and if
they can survive in a frozen mammoth, they can potentially
survive in other specimens. Ancient human remains from cold climates,
other ice age animals, maybe specimens from cool, dry environments
that aren't frozen but still provide enough preservation. The applications

(20:44):
keep branching out in unexpected directions. Understanding ancient diseases, studying
how genes were activated in extinct species, maybe someday even
helping efforts to bring back animals that vanished from the
Earth thousands of years ago, All because a young wooly
mammoth died on Siberian coast during the Last Ice Age
and the frozen ground kept its secrets intact long enough

(21:05):
for someone to figure out how to read them. If
you'd like to read this story for yourself or share
the article with a friend, you can read it on
the Weird Darkness website. I've placed a link to it
in the episode description, and you can find more stories
of the paranormal, true crime, strange, and more, including numerous
stories that never make it to the podcast in my
Weird Darknews blog at Weirddarkness dot com slash news