Kahlke R.–D. & D. Mol. 2005. Eiszeitliche Grosssäugetiere der Sibirischen Arktis. Die Cerpolex/Mammuthus–Expeditionen auf Tajmyr. – Stuttgart, E. Schweizerbart’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung (Nägele und Obermiller; Senckenberg–Buch 77)

Abstract

Cerpolex was just a travel agency until halfway the 1990s. If you wanted to go to the northernmost Eurasian continental cape on the Taimyr peninsula, or to the North Pole itself, you could book your journey through this Paris–based agency. Cerpolex (= Cercle Polaire Expéditions; or polar circle expeditions) then happened to stumble upon mammoth remains and on the people that discovered them. Its director, Mr. Bernard Buigues, became one of the most dedicated supporters of mammoth research after he met with a Dolgan family – the Jarkovs – that discovered a deep–frozen woolly proboscidian carcass. For a man who regularly ships tourists to the earth’s summit, the retrieval of a frozen mammoth carcass was not just another business deal, it became a temptation. And when Buigues’ sense for business came together with Dick Mol’s love for the mammoth, a team was born that so far did more than anyone else to obtain mammoth material for scientific study. Mol, an amateur palaeontologist as well as a man who can do with only four hours of sleep, is the incarnation of mammoutophilia. Buigues and Mol rescued the Jarkov mammoth, re–discovered the Fishhook mammoth, and collected thousands of other Pleistocene and Holocene megamamals from a region you and I would never choose as a holiday destination: the Siberian far north. Read more...