Scientists are now studying the body of an Ice Age puppy that was perfectly preserved after they have made an unexpected discovery. According to scientists, they found a piece of one of the last woolly rhinos inside the stomach of the Ice Age puppy.
Oldest puppy
In 2011, Russian researchers first excavated the preserved and furry body of the canine. They still have not figured out if it is a dog or a wolf. The preserved body was found in Tumat, Siberia.
Inside the puppy, which is said to be 14,000 years old, was a hairy piece of tissue. At first, scientists thought that the fragment belonged to a cave lion because it has fine yellow fur. However, tests done by experts at Stockholm's Natural History Museum showed that it is not the case.
Love Dalen, a professor of evolutionary genetics at the Center for Palaeogenetics, which is a joint venture between Stockholm University and the Swedish Museum of Natural History, said that when they got the DNA back, the fragment did not look like a cave lion.
Dalen said that they have a reference database and mitochondrial DNA from all mammals, so they checked the sequence data against that and the results that came back showed that it was almost a perfect match for woolly rhinoceros.
Dalen added that it was completely unheard of and he is not aware of any frozen Ice Age carnivore where they have found pieces of tissue inside. After radiocarbon dating the sample, scientists determined that the rhino skin that they found was around 14,400 years old.
According to the professor, the puppy dated around 14,000 years ago. They also know that the woolly rhinoceros went extinct 14,000 years ago, which means that the Ice Age puppy has eaten one of the last remaining woolly rhinos.
Experts still do not know how the Ice Age puppy came to have a piece of rhino in its stomach. A PhD student at the Center for Palaeogenetics, Edana Lord, stated that the puppy and the rhino would have been the same size as the white rhino that we see today.
Lord co-authored a paper studying the death of the woolly rhino. Lord added that it is unlikely that the Ice Age puppy killed the woolly rhino itself. The researchers also found it curious that the puppy died shortly after allegedly eating the woolly rhino.
Dalen added that the Ice Age puppy might have died shortly after eating the woolly rhino because it is not very digested. He said that they still do not know if the Ice Age puppy is a wolf, a wolf cub or maybe it came across a baby rhino that was dead, or the adult wolf ate the baby rhino. They also think that as the Ice Age puppy, the mother rhino may have had her revenge.
18,000-year-old Siberian puppy
In 2019, scientists also discovered the body of a canine near Yakutsk, in eastern Siberia. The canine was preserved by permafrost and the specimen's fur, teeth and nose are still intact.
According to CNN, scientists used carbon dating on the canine's rib bone, and experts from Sweden's Center for Palaeogenetics confirmed that the specimen had been frozen for 18,000 years. However, extensive DNA tests have been unable to show whether the animal was a wolf or a dog.
