In August of 2018, Russian scientists discovered the 42,000 year old remains of an animal. They confirmed Tuesday that the animal in question was a foal and found liquid blood and urine within the carcass.

The foal was discovered in the Batagai Basin region of Siberia, during a paleontological expedition centered on uncovering mammoth tusks. Grigoriev Semyon, head of the Mammoth Museum at North-Eastern Federal University (NEFU) said “[The foal blood] was preserved in the liquid state for 42,000 years thanks to favorable burial conditions and permafrost” in an interview with the Siberian Times. The foal is believed to have been between one and two weeks old when it drowned in mud and was frozen in permafrost.

A NEFU team is working with the South Korean Sooam Biotech Research Foundation in the hopes of cloning the species. They are “confident of success” in extracting the cells necessary for cloning and are in the process of choosing a mother for the clone.

The South Korean Sooam Biotech Research Foundation is run by Hwang Woo-suk, who falsely claimed he had cloned human embryonic stem cells back in 2004. The question of whether or not the task can be accomplished in the coming years is yet to be answered.