Mammoths Natural History Museum, London
Victoria Herridge, an NHM expert explains Lyuba to James Ward. Mammoths: Ice Age Giants at the Natural History Museum (opens 23 May 2014)
It includes huge fossils and life-size models of mammoths and their relatives tower above you and meet Lyuba, the world’s most complete mammoth, as she takes centre stage in the exhibition for her first appearance in western Europe. She is the star of the show, a baby woolly mammoth discovered in Russia’s Yamal Peninsula of Siberia in May 2007. She died around 42,000 years ago at just one month old. Her body was buried in wet clay and mud which then froze, preserving it until she was found by reindeer herder Yuri Khudi and his sons, as they were searching for wood along the frozen Yuribei River thousands of years later. The exhibition also includes some of the best-known species, from the infamous woolly mammoth and the spiral-tusked Columbian mammoth to their island-dwelling relative the dwarf mammoth. South Kensington, London.
