Russian boy discovers 'woolly mammoth of the century'

An 11-year-old boy from a nomadic family in Russia's north has stumbled upon a massive well-preserved woolly mammoth, in what scientists describe as the best such discovery since 1901.

Yevgeny Salinder, whose family lives near a polar station in the northern Taimyr Peninsula, discovered the frozen prehistoric animal when he was strolling along the banks of the Yenisei River in late August.

"He sensed an unpleasant odour and saw something sticking out of the ground -- it was the mammoth's heels," said Alexei Tikhonov, director of the Saint Petersburg-based Zoological Museum, who rushed to the tundra after the boy's family notified scientists of the historic find.

Tikhonov said it was the best preserved adult mammoth discovered in more than 100 years.

"So far we can say it is the mammoth of the century," Tikhonov said.

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