Different types of animals have been disappearing from view on the earth for millions of years.

Now, one of them keeps popping up again, thanks to natural human curiosity. Mammoths could walk the earth again.

With large tusks and a high rounded head, mammoths were up to 5 meters tall at the shoulder. They were covered with long, dark hairs and probably weighed from 6 to 12 tonnes.

Two mammoths dug up are on display in Beijing Museum of Natural History from April 28 to July 10.

Mammoths are close relatives of modern elephants. Mammoths first appeared in Africa about four million years ago and spread out across Europe and Asia. They slowly evolved into several different species, each adapting to their environment.

For example the hardy woolly mammoths lived in the extreme cold of Siberia. Most scientists think that about 10,000 years ago, woolly mammoths died out as a result of warmer weather reducing their food sources. It is believed that 10 million mammoths are buried under the frozen soil of Siberia.

In 2007, a Russian hunter came across what he thought was the body of a reindeer sticking out of the snow. With a closer look, the "reindeer" turned out to be a 40,000-year-old baby mammoth. Picture it in your mind. Woolly mammoths eating grass around the places we are living in right now.

"Our ancestors might have seen them, lived with them, and even hunted them," said Andrei Sher, a mammoth expert at the Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution in Moscow, Russia.

You might already have seen a mammoth in the movies. In Ice Age 2, the mammoth couple showed off their power, with the male saving the female from a damaged cave. What a prehistoric romance! But scientists are dying to see real mammoths.

The skin and flesh of those dug up are well preserved. Experts studying them hope to find the genetic secrets of the mammoth and bring them back to life.

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