Scientists in the remote region of Yakutia in northeastern Russia are performing an autopsy on a wolf frozen for around 44,000 years in a nature park. The find, discovered by chance by locals in Yakutia’s Abyyskiy district in 2021, is now being examined by experts for the first time. “This is the world’s first discovery of a predator from the late Pleistocene,” says Albert Protopopov, head of the department of mammoth fauna studies at the Yakutia Academy of Sciences. In the video above this story, Protopopov highlights that such well-preserved remains of a large carnivore from that period have never been found before.
Yakutia, a vast region of swamps and forests the size of Texas, is 95% covered by permafrost and experiences winter temperatures that can reach -64 degrees Celsius. Artyom Nedoluzhko, development director of the paleogenetics laboratory at the European University of St. Petersburg, says the wolf remains offer a rare opportunity to understand Yakutia 44,000 years ago. “The main goal is to understand what this wolf ate, who it was, and how it is related to ancient wolves that inhabited northeastern Eurasia,” Nedoluzhko says.
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