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A Pleistocene wolf unearthed in permafrost by Yakutia inhabitants is the first.
Scientists autopsy an ancient wolf.
Russian scientists are performing the first-ever autopsy on a wolf that has been in permafrost for 44,000 years.
“This is the world’s first discovery of a late Pleistocene predator,” said Yakutia Academy of Sciences mammoth department director Albert Protopopov.
“Its age is about 44,000 years, and there have never been such finds,” he stated.
An old permafrost wolf is autopsied by scientists.
Yakutia is a huge wetland and forest region in Russia’s Arctic far east, blanketed in permafrost 95 percent.
Regional winter temperatures can plummet below minus 64 degrees Celsius (-83.2 degrees Fahrenheit).
Protopopov said the wolf is unique among millennia-old animal carcasses buried in permafrost, which is thawing due to climate change.
One of the larger predators was active. He said it was smaller than cave lions and bears but a very active, mobile predator and scavenger.
The wolf’s remains provide a rare glimpse into 44,000-year-old Yakutia, according to European University in Saint Petersburg paleogenetics laboratory development director Artyom Nedoluzhko.
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