Ice Age wolf ’s head found in Siberian frost
Scientists believe Siberian remains, complete with fur and fangs, date back more than 40,000 years
The first intact adult head of an Ice Age wolf found preserved in permafrost for 40,000 years is being analysed by scientists. The 15-inch head, still covered in fur, was found on the Tirekhtyakh river by locals searching for mammoth tusks in the remote Siberian region of Yakutia last year. Russian and Japanese scientists hope that the find will help them learn more about an ancient predator that roamed Europe and Asia alongside the woolly mammoth.
THE first intact adult head of an Ice Age wolf found preserved in permafrost for 40,000 years is being analysed by scientists.
Still covered in thick fur and sporting a vicious-looking set of fangs, the 15-inch head was found on the Tirekhtyakh river by locals hunting for mammoth tusks in the remote Siberian region of Yakutia last year.
Now Russian and Japanese scientists hope that the find will help them learn more about an ancient predator that roamed Europe and Asia alongside the woolly rhinoceros and mammoth.
“We want to answer the question of whether these wolves disappeared or turned into modern wolves, how much they are related to modern wolves,” Albert Protopopov, head of mammoth fauna studies at the Yakutia Academy of Sciences, told The Daily Telegraph.
The soil in most of Yakutia remains frozen all year round, preventing ancient tusks and carcasses from decomposing. Specimens have been emerging ever more frequently as climate change gradually thaws the permafrost.
Well-preserved infant cave lions have been previously discovered nearby.
The mammoth tusk industry, which has been booming after China banned the carving of elephant ivory, has become the main source of palaeontological discoveries in the region, and the tusk hunters gave the head to Mr Protopopov at the academy
Unsure if it was thousands of years old or just a few hundred, he passed a sample to the Museum of Natural History in Stockholm, where the head was found to date to 40 millennia ago. It was also discovered the wolf was between two and four years old when it died.
‘The Pleistocene wolf could kill bigger animals than contemporary wolves’
Researchers at the Jikei University School of Medicine in Tokyo performed tomographic scans to map muscles and tissue in the specimen.
Both the Swedish and Japanese facilities will continue to study the DNA and internal anatomy of the head, which includes a fully preserved brain.
Working with Russian scientists, they plan to compare the animal’s genetic make-up and morphology to the wolves of today.
It is not clear whether the “Pleistocene wolf ” was larger than contemporary wolves, but its jaws were definitely stronger. “They could kill bigger animals – probably the biggest was a bison,” Mr Protopopov said.
“It’s important for science because wolves in the Pleistocene were broadly dispersed like cave lions,” he said. “There were lots of wolves but we don’t know much about them.” Several species of wolves lived during the Pleistocene ice age, including the celebrated dire wolf in the Americas.
Based on bones found in Siberia, both dogs and modern wolves are believed to have split off from a wolf ancestor at least 27,000 years ago.
Siberian huskies carry some genes of this ancient wolf even today. The head of the Ice Age wolf was unveiled at a woolly mammoth exhibition in Tokyo last week. It also featured a new Siberian cave lion cub specimen named Spartak, which weighs less than 2lb. It is in near-pristine condition, like the wolf head, and will be compared to modern lions. Scientists in Yakutia and Tokyo also hope to one day clone a woolly mammoth from tissue discovered in the Siberian permafrost, although such a project is not possible with current techniques.
Has the ancestor of the first dog been found? Russian and Japanese scientists have unearthed the intact head of an Ice Age wolf species believed to be about 40,000 years old. At the end of the glacial period, nomad hunters began to domesticate the grey wolf. Previously, the remains of an animal buried beside humans in what is now Germany were considered those of the first undisputed dog. Huskies carry the genes of the ancient wolves, while other dogs have had them bred out. It is hard to see a relative of the papillon in the latest find in the Siberian permafrost. It was probably bigger than modern wolves, but may be closely related, which would make it a possible antecedent of the pomeranian or bichon frise. Judging by its vicious-looking fangs, though, you would not want it sitting on your lap.