At a fancy New York dinner party in the fifties , invitee were told they would be boom on some meat from a 250,000 - twelvemonth - sure-enough woolly mammoth . The story has become a bizarre urban caption . Without wishing to spoil the party , a recent scientific probe has shew they were n’t actually eating mammoth nitty-gritty .
The legend of the mammoth steaks come from a banquet at the 47th Explorers Club Annual Dinner in January 1951 . On the menu was the prehistoric meat of a 250,000 - yr - old mammoth , found frozen on Akutan Island in Alaska .
Paul Griswold Howes , an American museum director , was invited to the effect , although he was unable to attend . To slow down his " fear of escape out , " the club gave him a piece of the nitty-gritty to keep as a souvenir . A cogitation , publish inPLOS ONEthis workweek , identify this remaining piece of meat using deoxyribonucleic acid analysis , which show the alien sum was in reality green ocean turtle ( Chelonia mydas ) .
The sample of the supposed " gigantic center " from 1951 . double recognition : Peabody Museum of Natural History , Yale University , US . cubic centimeter BY 4.0
The Explorers Clubare a hotchpotch of explorers and scientists who have join together in the hope of advancing scientific research and encourage public interest in skill . Notable extremity of the ball club include Neil Armstrong , Teddy Roosevelt , anda wealthiness of explorersrenowned for their “ notable first ” explorations .
Although the club has ostensibly matured in its one-time age , in their heyday they were notable for their exclusive , eccentric , and decadent events . Previous banquets reportedly served arctic feast that include king crabs , arctic botany , and glacial ice for the cocktails – all freshly flown in by the U.S. Navy . The hors d’oeuvres included fried tarantulas and goat eyeballs .
The Explorers Club fund the Yale analysis and seemed quenched with the results – eating extinct animal is n’t exactly right PR for a science organization nowadays .
“ We are pleased with the results of Yale ’s analysis , ” Will Roseman , executive film director of the Explorers Club , told theAssociated Press .
“ The mindset 65 years ago and today has dramatically changed and what was plainly a unique event decades ago , has given path to a determined elbow grease to precede masses to the solid food that can maintain mankind well into the future . ”
