A team of researchers have just made a startling discovery that has rocked the scientific community. In the frozen tundra of the New Siberian Islands they have found an astoundingly well-preserved mammoth carcass with large reserves of fresh blood still nearby.

The researchers traveled to the Arctic seas of northeastern Russia for their discovery. What they found was a woolly mammoth carcass that was in incredibly good condition for being at least 10,000 years old.

"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, and the upper part was found in the middle of tundra," said Semyon Grigoriev, the head of the expedition and chairman of the Mammoth Museum.

Perhaps even more exciting than the condition of the mammoth was the presence of its blood directly under it. For millennia it sat that trapped, persisting in almost the exact same form it had when it was first spilled thousands of years ago.

"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," Grigoriev noted.

The presence of the blood is especially exciting because of the possibilities that come with it. It may now be possible for scientists to clone a woolly mammoth in the laboratory using those blood samples. The blood also appears to have some very peculiar properties.

"Interestingly, the temperature at the time of excavation was -7 to -10 degrees Celsius [19.4 to 14 degrees Fahrenheit]. It may be assumed that the blood of mammoths had some cryoprotective properties," observes Grigoriev.

Though the discovery is not much more than a passing fascination for most people in the world, for the scientific community, it is a truly rare and astounding moment. This mammoth's body could very well become the premier specimen for future understanding of the woolly mammoth and the conditions of its time.

"This is the most astonishing case in my entire life. How was it possible for it to remain in liquid form? And the muscle tissue is also red, the color of fresh meat," Grigoriev said.