'The brain of Yuka was very well preserved, and we could compare it to the brain of an African elephant.' Picture: Mikhail Protopopov

Elephants are famed for their intelligence, and now it seems likely that the long-gone woolly mammoths were just as clever. Scientists from Russia and South Africa combined to undertake the first-ever comparison between the brains of the two creatures, using remains of adolescent Yuka, found five years ago close to the Laptev Sea in the Ust-Yansky district of the Sakha Republic, also known as Yakutia.

Albert Protopopov, head of the mammoth fauna studies department of the Yakutian Academy of Sciences, said: 'The brain of Yuka was very well preserved, and we could compare it to the brain of an African elephant. The world never made such a comparison before. South Africa offered us three African elephant brains for comparison. We ran a tomography scan on our test subjects and realised that they were identical.'

The scientists go further and deduce that the similarities of the brain are so striking that the woolly mammoths behaviour was also akin to elephants, according to a paper published in The Journal of Comparative Neurology.

'Now we can suppose that those animals were social and ruled by matriarchy,' he said of the woolly mammoth which died out completely around 4,000 years ago.

Adolescent Yuka was found five years ago close to the Laptev Sea in the Ust-Yansky district of the Sakha Republic, also known as Yakutia. Pictures: Mikhail Protopopov

Elephants are known for cognitively based behaviour, requiring conscious thought, for example in use of tools, reaction to disability, displaying grief, compassion, learning, mimicry, co-operation, memory and communication. Now, as a working assumption, the experts believe woolly mammoths had similar capabilities.

'The Yuka mammoth specimen evinced the typical shape and size of the brain observed in modern elephants,' he said. In fact, the volume of the Yuka brain was 54.83% of the endocranial cavity, but this shrinkage was entirely 'the result of dehydration during the long-term mummification of the tissue in the permafrost', he said. Allowance was also made for the fact that Yuka was a maximum nine years old, and so still growing.

'In overall appearance, the gross morphology of the Yuka mammoth brain was very similar to that of the extant African elephant brain,' he said. 'It appears that the woolly mammoths and extant elephants had similar overall brain masses.'

Dr Protopopov said: 'We conducted a morphological comparison of Yuka's brain with the brain of the African elephant of the same age. Our colleague Anastasia Kharlamova from the Institute of Human Morphology, Russian Academy of Sciences (Moscow), travelled to South Africa, and conducted a dissection. Such a comparison was carried out for the first time in the world as only Yuka has such a well-preserved brain.'

Brain of the African elephant (top) and the mummified brain of the Yuka woolly mammoth specimen (bottom). Picture: The Journal of Comparative Neurology

Like elephants, an 'outstanding feature' of the mammoth brain is the size of the cerebellum, states the scientific publication. 'Control of the woolly mammoth trunk likely relied on the same combination of size, neuronal number, and neuronal complexity observed in the cerebellum of African elephants. Thus, from a purely qualitative standpoint, and if the specimens were in a similar state of preservation, it would not be a particularly easy task to identify which specimen was a woolly mammoth and which was an extant elephant.'

The authors state: 'Although we strongly state the case for the understanding of woolly mammoth behaviour through the neuroethological study of extant elephants, we must do this with caution. There is no doubt that the woolly mammoth brain, to the extent we could examine the current specimen, is very similar to the extant elephant brain in most ways; however, the preservation state of the tissue prevented us from examining the specimen in more detail.

'Therefore, the case for the transference of neuroethological findings in extant elephants to woolly mammoths must be done with care. It is highly unlikely that woolly mammoths were just hairy elephants, and even extant animals with very similarly organised brains, such as lions and tigers, show substantial differences in such characteristics as social behaviours. Even so, the neuroethological study of extant elephants is likely to provide the most reliable predictions of woolly mammoth behaviour.

There is no doubt that the woolly mammoth brain, to the extent we could examine the current specimen, is very similar to the extant elephant brain in most ways. Pictures: Mikhail Protopopov

'Nevertheless, in the face of these problems and cautionary notes, the current study has provided a unique and revealing glimpse into a woolly mammoth brain that was preserved for around 38,000 years, as well as a potential path for increasing our understanding of the life history and behaviour of this animal.

The elephant brain has a total of 257 billion neurons. It is similar to that of humans in terms of structure and complexity. The elephant cortex has as many neurons as a human brain, taken as a sign of convergent evolution.

The Russian team involved in the research comprised Albert Protopopov, Yakutian Academy of Sciences (Yakutsk), Anastasia Kharlamova and Sergei Saveliev from Institute of Human Morphology, Russian Academy of Sciences (Moscow). The partners of Russian scientists in Africa were the researchers from the School of Anatomical Sciences, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand (Johannesburg) - Busisiwe C. Maseko, Adhil Bhagwandin, and Paul R. Manger.