Mummified Wolf Pup Recovered From Yukon Permafrost

[EnolaGaia]

This find raises hope that Ice Age era animal remains will be discovered more frequently and elsewhere than remote sites in Siberia.

Exquisitely-preserved wolf pup mummy discovered in Yukon permafrost

A female wolf pup mummy, perfectly preserved as it remained locked in permafrost for 57,000 years, is finally giving up some of its secrets, including how the grey wolf died and ended up alone in the ice so long ago.

The mummified grey wolf (Canis lupus) was discovered by a gold miner excavating permafrost in Yukon, Canada, in July 2016, in the Klondike gold fields near Dawson City.

"She is the most complete wolf specimen ever found from the ice age," said lead author Julie Meachen, an associate professor of Anatomy at Des Moines University in Iowa. "All her soft tissue, her hair, her skin, even her little nose is still there. She's just complete. And that is really rare." ...

Several types of analysis — including radiocarbon dating, DNA sampling and measurements of levels of different versions, or isotopes, of oxygen — confirmed when the pup died. X-rays of the skeleton and teeth also revealed that Zhùr (meaning "wolf" in the Hän language of the local Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in people) was only 7 weeks old when she met her untimely end. ...

Meachen and colleagues reconstructed Zhùr's mitochondrial genome — the genome found in the cells' energy-making structures called mitochondria that gets passed along the maternal line — finding similarities with both Beringian wolves, an extinct group that lived in ancient Yukon and Alaska, and Russian grey wolves. The pup's relation to individuals from both North America and Eurasia is proof of ancient continental mixing across the Bering Land Bridge ...

One of the biggest remaining mysteries surrounding Zhùr is how she was mummified and why she ended up alone. The researchers' hypothesize that she was killed when her den collapsed on top of her. This would explain why the remains are so perfectly preserved, because they would have been instantaneously entombed in a cold, dry and airtight environment. ...

FULL STORY:
https://www.livescience.com/wolf-pup-preserved-permafrost-thousands-years.html

PUBLISHED REPORT:
A mummified Pleistocene gray wolf pup
Julie Meachen, Matthew J. Wooller, Benjamin D. Barst, Elizabeth Hall, Susan Hewitson, Grant Zazula, et al.
Current Biology
VOLUME 30, ISSUE 24, PR1467-R1468, DECEMBER 21, 2020
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2020.11.011

 

[hunck]

Here's another, not quite so old as the one above at around 18,000 years old, found in Siberian permafrost in 2018.

They've been unable so far to tell whether it's a wolf or dog.

‘It could be a very early modern wolf or very early dog or a late Pleistocene wolf.

‘If it turns out to be a dog I would say it is the earliest confirmed dog.’