Local scientists in Yakutland, in the northeastern part of Russia, are conducting an autopsy on the carcass of a wolf frozen in permafrost some 44,000 years ago, which they believe is the first discovery of its kind. Reuters.
The wolf's body was accidentally found in 2021 by local residents in the Abyezhsk region of Yakutia, and scientists are now examining it carefully.
“This is the world’s first discovery of a predator from the Late Pleistocene,” said Albert Protopopov, head of the Department of Mammoth Studies at the Yakutia Academy of Sciences.
Yakutia is located between the Arctic Ocean and Russia's far east in the Arctic, a vast area roughly the size of Texas of swamps and forests, about 95 percent of which is covered in permafrost.
Winter temperatures in the area can drop to -64 degrees Celsius. Herbivores usually die, get stuck in swamps, freeze, and come to us whole. This is the first time a large carnivore has been found.
It's not uncommon to find thousands of year-old animal carcasses deep in permafrost, which is slowly thawing due to climate change, but this wolf is special, Protopopov says.
It was a very active predator, one of the largest. Slightly smaller than cave lions and bears, but a very active and mobile predator and scavenger
he added.
For Artyom Nedoluzhko, development director at the Laboratory of Paleogenomics at the European University in St. Petersburg, the wolf remains offer a rare glimpse into Yakutia 44,000 years ago.
The main goal is to understand what this wolf ate, who it was, and how closely it was related to ancient wolves that lived in northeastern Eurasia.
He confirmed.
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