While the phrase “a woolly mammoth with buttercups in its mouth” seems like a scene description for the next installment of Disney's Ice Age series, it actually refers to a mystery that was unearthed in the early part of the nineteen-hundreds in Siberia. During an extensive thaw, a woolly mammoth was found, half standing, half kneeling, on the banks of the Beresovka River completely frozen and, with the exception of some recent scavenging by a pack of wild dogs, relatively well preserved. So well preserved, in fact, that some way too curious people actually cooked up some mammoth meat, deeming it edible, but not too tasty.

Several factors made this an odd case. After consulting with experts in the deep-freeze butchery industry, it was estimated that to freeze such a beast (factoring in its size and thick, insulating fur) without having ice crystals form (which would burst the cells of its flesh), a stupendously frigid temperature of -150 degrees Fahrenheit would have to be achieved. Then, remember the fact that the poor, fuzzy beast was minding its own business, munching on buttercups at the time of its untimely demise. Now I'm no botanist, but I'm fairly certain that buttercups will have a mildly difficult time growing at -150 degrees Fahrenheit.

Some scientists say that the mammoth stumbled off a cliff and landed in a pile of slushy water and drowned, yet this theory can be discounted by the fact that the mammoth was partially standing and that the freezing process had to be infinitely quicker so that the cells would not crystallize and burst. Other theories assert that there is the possibility of either a meteor or a massive volcanic eruption that sent a colossal column of dust and debris into the upper atmosphere where it super cooled, plummeting down to Earth, instantly dropping the temperature rather quickly and dramatically, plunging that part of the world into what has become known as a “nuclear winter.”

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