Japanese scientists will clone a mammoth in five-six years, thus providing the revival of the animal species extinct several thousand years ago. “The preparations are over”, the head of the research Akira Iritani said for the daily newspaper “Yomiuri Shimbun”.

One Russian laboratory will place the frozen mammoth tissue at the disposal of his team. The scientists will first implant the cell nuclei of mammoth into the ovum of the elephant, which will then be implanted in the womb of a female elephant. Elephants are the closest living relatives of mammoths, which extinct in the end of the ice age.

More than 80 per cent of mammoth remains were found in the permafrost of the Eastern Siberia. The Japanese team collaborates with one Russian mammoth expert and two American elephant experts.