The receding waters of the Danube River, driven to record lows by persistent heatwaves, have revealed the skeletal remains of an ancient mammoth near the town of Ryahovo in Bulgaria. According to researchers at the Regional History Museum in Ruse, the bones belong to a specimen of Mammuthus primigenius, commonly known as the woolly mammoth. This species existed from approximately 500,000 to 800,000 years ago until about 7,000 to 10,000 years ago.
Museum curator Krasimir Kirov stated that the animal stood almost 5 metres tall and weighed more than 7–8 tonnes. It is believed that the remains were carried to that specific spot by the Danube, where prehistoric animal bones have accumulated over millennia. To date, researchers have identified and recovered a jawbone, tusks, a shoulder blade, ribs, and various other bone fragments. Much of the skeleton is likely still buried, and experts are removing the recovered pieces from the riverbed with great care, as the bones are highly vulnerable to deterioration once exposed to air after being submerged for thousands of years.
Once the remains have been properly conserved and studied, they are expected to be put on display at the museum in Ruse, which is situated approximately thirty kilometres from the discovery site. The drying of the Danube, which flows through ten countries from south-west Germany to the Black Sea, has dropped water levels to record lows along much of its course. This has exposed rocks, sandbanks, and ancient wrecks that were rarely visible in the past. Similar discoveries have occurred elsewhere, including German warships from the Second World War in Serbia at Prahovo and other wrecks in Hungary near Mohács. The drought is also causing modern-day industrial strain; for instance, Hungary has been forced to shut down the Paks nuclear power plant because the water level is currently too low to guarantee the cooling of the facility.
