Remember when woolly mammoths roamed the planet ? No ? Well do n't worry if you missed the last ice age -- scientists have moved one step closer to possibly bringing the beasts back to life with the discovery of liquid blood in a well-preserved mammoth carcass in Siberia . Researchers from the Northeast Federal University in Yakutsk found the 10,000-year-old female mammoth buried in ice on the Lyakhovsky Islands off the coast of northeast Russia . Scientists say they poked the frozen creature with a pick and dark liquid blood flowed out . `` The fragments of muscle tissues , which we 've found out of the body , have a natural red color of fresh meat . The reason for such preservation is that the lower part of the body was underlying in pure ice , '' said Semyon Grigoriev , the head of the expedition and of the university 's Mammoth Museum , in a statement on the university 's website . `` The blood is very dark , it was found in ice cavities below the belly and when we broke these cavities with a poll pick , the blood came running out , '' he said . `` Interestingly , the temperature at the time of excavation was -7 to -10ºC . It may be assumed that the blood of mammoths had some cryoprotective properties . '' Ice age baby mammoth goes on display in Hong Kong . Cryoprotectant is a substance found in modern fish and amphibians living in the Arctic and Antarctic that minimizes the damage to the creatures ' tissue in freezing temperatures . Grigoriev told The Siberian Times newspaper it was the first time mammoth blood had been discovered and called it `` the best preserved mammoth in the history of paleontology . '' `` We suppose that the mammoth fell into water or got bogged down in a swamp , could not free herself and died . Due to this fact the lower part of the body , including the lower jaw , and tongue tissue , was preserved very well , '' he said . Grigoriev called the liquid blood `` priceless material '' for the university 's joint project with South Korean scientists who are hoping to clone a woolly mammoth , which has been extinct for thousands of years . The controversial Sooam Biotech Research Foundation is headed up by Hwang Woo-suk -- the disgraced former Seoul National University scientist who claimed in 2004 that he had successfully cloned human embryonic stem cells before admitting he had faked his findings . Hwang , who also cloned the world 's first puppy , was forced to admit he had fabricated the stem cell data and apologized in January 2006 after a panel of scientists found he had not derived human stem cells from eggs , as he claimed . A one-hour documentary about the joint Russia-South Korean quest to clone a mammoth from the creature 's remains aired on the National Geographic Channel in the U.S. in April . Grigoriev says the mammoth carcass has not been moved yet for fear of damaging it -- and that his team will join foreign researches in Siberia for further research in July . Newly discovered dinosaur fossil is a primitive bird .
Scientists discover liquid blood in mammoth carcass in Siberia . Head of expedition calls find `` the best preserved mammoth in history '' South Korean company to explore cloning mammoth using the blood .