Susi the Mammoth

In 1903, an almost complete mammoth skeleton was discovered in the Klinge clay pit near Cottbus. The preserved bones have now been well prepared and stored in the Berlin Natural History Museum. In 2001, the mammoth skeleton was reconstructed and the missing bones supplemented. A copy of the complete skeleton was produced and and mounted in the Spree-Neiße council offices in Forst (Lausitz). Today it is also known as the mascot of the geopark. Susi the Mammoth was around 45 to 50 years old when she died. At the shoulder she measured only 2.75 metres. Susi had sunk into the mud on the edge of a lake and was unable to free herself. She perished in the depths of the lake and her bones were preserved between the peat layers. Pollen studies have shown that the climate when Susi was alive was approximately two degrees warmer than today. That means that Susi lived in an interglacial period. Mammoths were therefore not exclusively ice age fauna, but also occasionally lived in warmer periods.