Mummified mammoth Lyuba, now in London, part of Chicago Field Museum touring exhibit

ByAnne E. Swaney WLS logo
Thursday, May 22, 2014
Mummified mammoth Lyuba is getting a lot of attention in London, but the baby woolly mammoth got her start in Chicago.
Mummified mammoth Lyuba, now in London, part of Chicago Field Museum touring exhibitMummified mammoth Lyuba is getting a lot of attention in London, but the baby woolly mammoth got her start in Chicago.
Photo/The Field Museum

CHICAGO (WLS) -- Mummified mammoth Lyuba is getting a lot of attention in London, but the baby woolly mammoth got her start in Chicago.

The "Mammoth and Mastodons" exhibition at the London Natural History Museum, which opens on May 23, was created by The Field Museum in Chicago in 2010.

The star - Lyuba, a baby woolly mammoth - was discovered in Siberia in 2007 by a reindeer herder. Her name, which is Russian, means "love." She is believed to have died 42,000 years ago when she was just 1-month old.

Lyuba debuted at Chicago's Field Museum. The exhibit ran from spring to fall 2010, and has been on tour ever since, according to Emily Waldren, public relations manager, at The Field Museum.

"It was really popular. People loved it," Waldren said. "It gets a lot of attention wherever it goes."

"Mammoths and Mastodons: Titans of the Ice Age" is on a 10-city tour.

"Lyuba doesn't always go. So some places have gotten a cast of Lyuba. Some places get the real Lyuba," Waldren said.

London got the real thing. The exhibit runs from March 23 to September 7, 2014.

"This is one of the things we love about traveling exhibits. People become more aware of the Field Museum," Waldren said.

Lyuba is on loan for the exhibit from Russia's Shemanovsky Museum.

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