Post by Deleted on Dec 8, 2019 11:57:51 GMT -5
Ice preserved a tiny puppy in near-perfect condition for 18,000 years. Scientists are fascinated.
Dec. 2, 2019 at 11:14 a.m. EST
Researchers have big outstanding questions about the puppy they have named Dogor — “friend” in a language of the Siberian area where the creature spent 18,000 years in permafrost.
They don’t have to speculate about what Dogor looked like, however, because icy conditions have left him remarkably frozen in time.
“This puppy has all its limbs, pelage — fur, even whiskers. The nose is visible. There are teeth. We can determine due to some data that it is a male,” said Nikolai Androsov, director of the Northern World museum, at a presentation of the discovery in Yakutsk.
Though scientists could determine that it was a male, the AP reported, they’re still trying to figure out whether the tiny canine is a dog or a wolf. They wonder whether he could be part of the evolutionary bridge that turned a fierce wild animal into man’s best friend.
“Fantastic, right?” said Dave Stanton, a research fellow at the Centre for Palaeogenetics in Stockholm who has been scrutinizing the canine. “We have quite a lot of ancient samples. … But this has got be one of the best-preserved.”
The puppy was discovered last year by locals in Yakutia, said Sergei Fyodorov, who heads the exposition hall at the Mammoth Museum of Russia’s North-Eastern Federal University. Dogor left the wilderness as a lump of soil and ice, but scientists could make out the head and paws of what they believed at first to be a young wolf.
Fyodorov told The Washington Post that he carefully cleaned off dirt and debris to reveal near-intact fur — “extremely rare for animals of that time period.”
“It’s an amazing feeling, to see, touch and feel the history of earth,” he said.
www.washingtonpost.com/science/2019/11/29/ice-preserved-tiny-puppy-near-perfect-condition-years-scientists-are-fascinated/?utm_campaign=the_optimist&utm_medium=Email&utm_source=Newsletter&wpisrc=nl_optimist&wpmm=1
Dec. 2, 2019 at 11:14 a.m. EST
Researchers have big outstanding questions about the puppy they have named Dogor — “friend” in a language of the Siberian area where the creature spent 18,000 years in permafrost.
They don’t have to speculate about what Dogor looked like, however, because icy conditions have left him remarkably frozen in time.
“This puppy has all its limbs, pelage — fur, even whiskers. The nose is visible. There are teeth. We can determine due to some data that it is a male,” said Nikolai Androsov, director of the Northern World museum, at a presentation of the discovery in Yakutsk.
Though scientists could determine that it was a male, the AP reported, they’re still trying to figure out whether the tiny canine is a dog or a wolf. They wonder whether he could be part of the evolutionary bridge that turned a fierce wild animal into man’s best friend.
“Fantastic, right?” said Dave Stanton, a research fellow at the Centre for Palaeogenetics in Stockholm who has been scrutinizing the canine. “We have quite a lot of ancient samples. … But this has got be one of the best-preserved.”
The puppy was discovered last year by locals in Yakutia, said Sergei Fyodorov, who heads the exposition hall at the Mammoth Museum of Russia’s North-Eastern Federal University. Dogor left the wilderness as a lump of soil and ice, but scientists could make out the head and paws of what they believed at first to be a young wolf.
Fyodorov told The Washington Post that he carefully cleaned off dirt and debris to reveal near-intact fur — “extremely rare for animals of that time period.”
“It’s an amazing feeling, to see, touch and feel the history of earth,” he said.
www.washingtonpost.com/science/2019/11/29/ice-preserved-tiny-puppy-near-perfect-condition-years-scientists-are-fascinated/?utm_campaign=the_optimist&utm_medium=Email&utm_source=Newsletter&wpisrc=nl_optimist&wpmm=1
