- Scientists are studying a 44,000-year-old mummified wolf found in permafrost in Russia.
- A wolf can tell scientists what its lifestyle and diet was like during the Pleistocene.
- Scientists hope to learn more about the ancient bacteria and how the wolf is related to modern animals.
This wolf looks pretty good for its age considering it’s 44,000 years old.
In 2021, residents of Yakutsk in eastern Russia found a wolf in thick permafrost—soil that normally remains frozen year-round but has begun to melt in many places as average global temperatures rise.
Now scientists at Northeastern Federal University in Yakutsk, Russia are studying the mummified remains to learn more about the animal.
The frozen conditions helped to mummify and perfectly preserve the Pleistocene predator. His teeth and much of his fur are still intact, as are some of his organs.
“It’s actually shocking,” Robert Losey, an anthropologist at the University of Alberta who was not involved in the research, told Business Insider.
“It’s the only complete adult Pleistocene wolf ever found, so that in itself is really remarkable and quite unique,” he added.
A lot can be learned from such a well-preserved ancient animal, including its genetics, lifestyle, diet, and even what ancient bacteria and viruses it had.
“Living bacteria can survive for thousands of years, which are a kind of witness to those ancient times,” Artemy Goncharov, a researcher at the Institute of Experimental Medicine, said in a translated statement.
A wolf’s stomach can hold the last meal and much more
This 44,000-year-old wolf likely belongs to an extinct species and was probably larger than modern wolves, Losey said. Studying the animal’s genome will help reveal where it fits into the canine family tree.
After examining one of its teeth, scientists believe the wolf was an adult male. He probably hunted in a flat, cold environment full of mammoths, woolly rhinoceros, extinct horses, bison and reindeer.
The remains of some of these animals may even remain in the wolf’s guts. The researchers took samples of the stomach and digestive tract to learn more and are awaiting the results.
Researchers can also be able to tease out what functions the ancient microbes in the wolf’s gut performed and whether it had parasites, Losey said. If some of the microorganisms are unknown to science, they could play a role in the development of future drugs, the researchers said in a statement.
The discovery is just part of a larger collaboration studying other ancient animals, including fossil hares, horses and bears. Scientists previously studied a Pleistocene wolf head and have another wolf fossil awaiting dissection.
Ancient animals and infectious agent thaw
As the world’s permafrost melts due to rising global temperatures, ancient creatures like this are reappearing. In the Yukon, for example, paleontologists are still smiling over a perfectly preserved baby mammoth discovered in 2022.
However, not everything in permafrost is so harmless.
In 2016, a thaw on Siberia’s Yamal Peninsula released anthrax from a once-frozen reindeer carcass, causing an outbreak that infected 36 people and killed one child.
Scientists fear that other pathogens may be dormant in the tundra and are slowly being approached by the melting of a warming world.
Last year, researcher Jean-Michel Claverie announced that he had revived a 48,000-year-old virus found in Siberian permafrost. It can still infect unicellular amoebae.
“We consider these amoeba-infecting viruses to be surrogates for all the other possible viruses that could be in the permafrost,” Claverie told CNN at the time. “We see traces of many, many, many more viruses. So we know they’re there. We don’t know for sure if they’re still alive.”
Any ancient viruses or bacteria in the guts of the Yakut wolf could help researchers better understand the microbes hiding inside the permafrost creatures.