- Researchers are studying a 44,000-year-old mummified wolf found in permafrost in Russia.
- The wolf can tell scientists what its lifestyle and diet was like during the Pleistocene epoch.
- Researchers 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 Yakutia in eastern Russia found the wolf in thick permafrost—soil that normally remains frozen year-round, but in many places has begun to thaw as average global temperatures rise.
Now researchers at the Northeastern Federal University in Yakutsk, Russia, are studying the mummified remains to learn more about the animal.
The frozen conditions helped 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.
“This is the only fully adult Pleistocene wolf that has ever been found, so that in itself is really remarkable and completely unique,” he added.
There is much to learn 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,” Artemi Goncharov, a researcher at the Institute of Experimental Medicine, said in a translated statement.
A wolf’s stomach can hold its last meal and much more
This 44,000-year-old wolf probably belonged to an extinct species and was probably larger than modern wolves, Losey said. Studying the animal’s genome will help reveal where it fits in the canine family tree.
After examining one of its teeth, scientists believe the wolf is an adult male. He probably hunted in a flat, cold environment full of mammoths, woolly rhinos, extinct horses, bison and reindeer.
The remains of some of these animals may even remain in the wolf’s gut. Researchers took samples from his stomach and digestive tract to learn more, and are awaiting results.
Researchers can also to be able to understand what functions the ancient microbes in the wolf’s gut served and whether parasites were present, Losey said. If any of the microorganisms are unknown to science, they may play a role in the development of future drugs, the researchers said in a statement.
This discovery is just one part of a larger collaboration to study other ancient animals, including fossil rabbits, a horse and a bear. The researchers previously examined a Pleistocene wolf head and have another wolf fossil awaiting dissection.
Ancient animals and infectious agents are thawed
As the world’s permafrost thaws due to rising global temperatures, more ancient creatures like this are resurfacing. In the Yukon, for example, paleontologists still marvel at a perfectly preserved baby mammoth discovered in 2022.
Not everything in permafrost is so harmless, however.
In 2016, the thawing of the Yamal Peninsula in Siberia released anthrax from a once-frozen reindeer carcass, sparking an outbreak that infected 36 people and killed one child.
Researchers fear that other pathogens may be dormant in the tundra as the melting of a warming world slowly creeps up on them.
Last year, researcher Jean-Michel Clavery announced that he had revived a 48,000-year-old virus found in the permafrost of Siberia. It can still infect unicellular amoebae.
“We’re looking at these amoeba-infecting viruses as surrogates for all the other possible viruses that might be in the permafrost,” Clavery told CNN at the time. “We see the traces of many, many, many other viruses. So we know they are there. We don’t know for sure that they are still alive.”
Any ancient viruses or bacteria in the Yakut wolf’s gut could help researchers better understand the microbes lurking inside the permafrost creatures.
