An 8-year-old girl in Russia made a fascinating discovery while fishing with her father along the banks of the Oka River in Novinki, western Russia.

Maryam Mirsaitova stumbled upon a set of mammoth leg bones and a vertebra from a prehistoric bison after a recent landslide excited a series of strange objects in the area. Intrigued by her findings, her father took photographs and promptly shared them with the Nizhny Novgorod Museum-Reserve, hoping for identification by researchers.

Upon inspection, experts determined that Maryam had found the knee joint and lower tibia of a woolly mammoth, suggesting an adult mammoth that roamed the area approximately 100,000 years ago. Woolly mammoths were prevalent in Europe, Asia, and North America, with populations in this region likely surviving until roughly 10,000 years ago when changing environmental conditions and human hunting practices led to their decline.

In addition to the mammoth bones, Maryam also stumbled upon a vertebra believed to be from a steppe bison, an ancestor of modern European and American bison. The museum mentioned that Maryam had discovered another unidentified bone, emphasizing the importance of reporting such findings to scientific institutions for further study.

Russia, particularly Siberia, is well-known for its abundance of mammoth fossils, with some even found mummified due to the extreme cold preserving their remains. Notably, a mummified mammoth calf named Lyuba was discovered in 2007 on the Yamal Peninsula, highlighting the significance of such discoveries in understanding prehistoric life.

The Nizhny Novgorod Museum-Reserve encouraged individuals who come across fossils to report them, emphasizing that many valuable specimens often end up in private collections, hindering scientific research. The story of Lyuba, initially traded for snowmobiles before being recovered and showcased worldwide, serves as a reminder of the importance of preserving and studying prehistoric remains for future generations to learn from and appreciate.