Down to the Last Flea 
Richard Fortey
- Mammoth: The Resurrection of an Ice Age Giant by Richard Stone
In 1901, a frozen mammoth’s penis was discovered on the Berezovka River in Siberia. The organ was erect, nearly three feet long and, having been flattened in the icy tundra, eight inches in diameter. The mammoth’s testicles, equally frozen, were tucked inside the overlying carcass. The meat was dark and marbled, like properly hung beef. Otto Herz and Eugen Pfizenmayer, who made the discovery, wondered if they shouldn’t eat it, rather than continue to subsist on horseflesh. They decided against it. Their dogs had no such scruples. The mammoth had been frozen for something like 44,000 years; its chestnut hair was still matted on the carcass. It differed from modern elephants in other features besides hairiness: it had four toes compared with an elephant’s five, and a flap of skin protected its anus from cold winds. Its tusks curved towards each other. According to the Russian geologist I.P. Tolmachoff, this mammoth had become bogged down in treacherous ground and had suffocated, which evidently accounted for its tumid state.
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Richard Fortey is a research scientist at the Natural History Museum and visiting professor of palaeobiology at Oxford. The Earth: An Intimate History was shortlisted for the Aventis science writing prize 2005.
Other articles by this contributor:
Most Curious of Seas · Noah’s Flood
Shock Lobsters · The Burgess Shale
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