This puppy with his first set of milky teeth was just two months old when he died, and that happened around 18,000 years ago. The mummified puppy was discovered in a lump of permanently frozen ground (so-called permafrost) near the Indigirka river in the Yakutia region, Siberia, Russia. The permafrost preserved the puppy’s body, muzzle, and even whiskers, eyelashes, and velvety nose.
Sergey Fedorov/North-Eastern Federal University in Yakutsk
Samples of the puppy’s genome were sent to the Swedish Centre for Palaeogenetics (CPG), which possesses Europe’s largest DNA bank of all canines – but, surprisingly, the genetic origins of the puppy weren’t discovered on the first try.
Sergey Fedorov/North-Eastern Federal University in Yakutsk
Sergey Fedorov, the researcher at the North-Eastern Federal University in Yakutsk, who was the first to examine the extraordinary find (and took these pictures), expressed excitement: “This is intriguing, what if it’s a dog? We can’t wait to get results from further tests!” said Fedorov.
Sergey Fedorov/North-Eastern Federal University in Yakutsk
The catch here is that, considering the uncertainty in the DNA results, researchers suppose the puppy could be related to the so-called wolfdogs, a possible transition species from wolves to dogs.
Sergey Fedorov/North-Eastern Federal University in Yakutsk