완벽하게 보존 된 늑대 강아지, 영구 동토층에 숨겨져 57,000 연구자들은 “가장 오래된, 가장 완전한 늑대,” 유콘에서 발견되었습니다, 캐나다.
생물, named Zhùr by the local Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in First Nation people, was discovered in the Klondike goldfields, near Dawson City, by a gold miner, who was water blasting a wall of frozen mud.
“This mummy is so complete, she has basically got all her skin, most of her fur … all her soft tissues present, and she’s 56,000 살이에요, or thereabouts,” Julie Meachen, an associate professor of anatomy at Des Moines University in Iowa, CNN에 말했다.
The female pup, according to Meachen, 이다 “가장 오래된, most complete wolf that’s ever been found,” allowing researchers to delve deeper into what her life would have looked like.
Using X-ray techniques, experts determined that the puppy, 어느 had been preserved in permafrost, died at 6 또는 7 weeks old.
그 동안에, a technique called stable isotope analysis revealed that the animal lived during a time when glaciers had receded.
Experts used noninvasive X-ray techniques to find out more about the wolf pup.
“There weren’t quite as many glaciers around, which means there was a lot more fresh water,” 그녀가 말했다. “There were a lot of streams, a lot of rivers flowing, and probably a lot of other animals around. She lived in a lush time.”
The wolf cub’s diet, researchers found, was influenced by her proximity to water: Isotope analysis revealed “she and her mom were eating mostly aquatic resources — things like salmon, maybe some shore birds,” Meachen said.
A DNA analysis revealed the pup is descended from ancient wolves — the ancestors of modern wolves — from Russia, Siberia and Alaska.
The wolf pup died at 6 또는 7 weeks of age.
“It’s not a surprise — she is related to the things that were there at the time,” 그녀는 설명했다. “But the cool thing about that, that most people might not know, is that wolves in the ice age were only distantly related to wolves that are around today.
“They are still the same species, but they are very different, for being in the same species. Their genetics have changed quite a bit over time — the diversity of wolf has been diminished over time, and again, expanded.
“She is truly an ancient wolf, and she was related to all the wolves around her at the time,” Meachen said.
It takes very specific circumstances to create a permafrost mummy, 연구원들은 말했다, although several well preserved wolf cubs have been retrieved from Siberia. 하나, this cub, found in North America, was particularly rare.
“It’s rare to find these mummies in the Yukon. The animal has to die in a permafrost location, where the ground is frozen all the time, and they have to get buried very quickly, like any other fossilization process,” Meachen said in a statement. “If it lays out on the frozen tundra too long it’ll decompose or get eaten.”
Because of her “pristine” 질환, experts think that the wolf cub died instantaneously, perhaps when her den collapsed, as data showed she didn’t starve.
The research was published Monday in the journal Current Biology.
