• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

Ice Age Puppies, Preserved In Permafrost For 14,000 Years, Turn Out To Be Wolves

June 11, 2025 by Deborah Bloomfield

When two “puppies” were recovered from the Siberian permafrost, perfectly preserved like prehistoric popsicles, they were initially believed to be early domesticated dogs. However, new research has revealed they were actually red-blooded wolves. Even more remarkably, scientists discovered that these Ice Age pups dined on woolly rhinoceroses, an unexpectedly formidable prey for a small canine.

One of the Tumat Puppies was recovered from the permafrost in 2011 by mammoth ivory hunters from Tumat, a remote village in Northern Siberia, while the other was discovered during an excavation of the same site in 2015.

Now, an international team of scientists led by the University of York has had the opportunity to study the two perfectly preserved specimens, uncovering some surprising revelations about their lives.

Genetic analysis showed that the cubs were female siblings from the same litter that lived around 14,000 years ago. Based on their teeth, it’s estimated they died when they were just seven to nine weeks old.

The puppies were found preserved in frozen layers of soil near the bones of woolly mammoths, some of which appeared to have been burned and cut by humans. This raised the possibility that the pups had a close connection to humans, perhaps as early pet dogs or wolves that were learning to stay close to human activity for food in the initial stages of domestication.

However, this doesn’t seem to be the case. DNA testing shows that the cubs most likely belonged to a wolf population that eventually died out and had little relation to today’s domestic dogs.

One of the wolf cub siblings uncovered near Tumat

Big stretch: One of the wolf cub siblings uncovered near Tumat.

Image credit: Mietje Germonpré Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences

Another key reason why they were suspected to be domesticated dogs was their black fur, a distinct coloration that’s caused by a genetic mutation that’s only found in dogs today. However, it appears the Tumat Puppies were an exception.

“Whilst many will be disappointed that these animals are almost certainly wolves and not early domesticated dogs, they have helped us get closer to understanding the environment at the time, how these animals lived, and how remarkably similar wolves from more than 14,000 years ago are to modern day wolves,” Anne Kathrine Runge, study author from the University of York’s Department of Archaeology, who analyzed the cubs as part of her PhD, said in a statement.

“It also means that the mystery of how dogs evolved into the domestic pet we know today deepens, as one of our clues – the black fur colour – may have been a red herring given its presence in wolf cubs from a population that is not related to domestic dogs,” added Runge.

An especially interesting part of the study saw the researchers analyze the stomach contents of the pair. Along with evidence of plants, their guts contained the tissues of a woolly rhino, an extinct horned species that inhabited northern Eurasia during the Ice Age.

“The hunting of an animal as large as a woolly rhinoceros, even a baby one, suggests that these wolves are perhaps bigger than the wolves we see today, but still consistent in many ways, because wolves still tend to hunt easy prey while some of the pack is engaged in cub rearing,” said Dr Nathan Wales, study author from the University of York’s Department of Archaeology.

There was once hope that the Tumat Puppies might be the long-sought remains of an early domesticated dog, a potential missing link that could shed light on the origins of our bond with “man’s best friend”. Unfortunately, that isn’t the case. Nevertheless, these frozen canines have their own story to tell, offering fascinating insights into the lives of ancient wolf populations that roamed the Ice Age tundra.

The new study is published in the journal Quaternary Research.

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. Garcia jumps back into action after Ryder Cup letdown
  2. NASA’s Artemis I Will Make History This Weekend – Here’s How To Watch Live
  3. 1.2-Million-Year-Old Obsidian Axe Factory Found In Ethiopia
  4. Nuclear Football: Who Actually Has The Nuclear Launch Codes?

Source Link: Ice Age Puppies, Preserved In Permafrost For 14,000 Years, Turn Out To Be Wolves

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • Man Broke Down Wall In His Basement And Discovered An Ancient Underground City That Once Housed 20,000 People
  • Same-Sex Penguin Couple Adopt And Raise Chick – And They’ve All Got 10/10 Names
  • Dolphins May Not “See” With Echolocation, But Instead “Feel” With It
  • Confirmed! Comet 3I/ATLAS Is Indeed An Interstellar Visitor, Quite Different From Its Predecessors
  • At 192, Jonathan – The Oldest Living Land Animal – Has Lived Through 40 US Presidents
  • 300,000-Year-Old Wooden Tools “Made By Denisovans” Discovered In China
  • Why Do Cats Eyes Glow? For The Same Reason Great White Sharks’ Do, Silly
  • G-astronomical News: Michelin-Starred Meal To Be Served On The ISS
  • In 2032, Earth May Witness A Once-In-5,000-Year Event On The Moon
  • Brand New Microscope Designed For Underwater Reveals Stunning Details Of Corals
  • The Atlantic’s Major Circulation Current Is Showing Worrying Signs, But Is Collapse Near?
  • “The Rings Held The Answer”: How We Finally Figured Out Saturn’s Day Length In 2019
  • Mystery Of Leonardo Da Vinci’s “Vitruvian Man” Solved By A Dentist And A Protractor
  • Asteroid Ryugu’s Latest Mineral Is As Weird As Finding “A Tropical Seed In The Arctic”
  • IFLScience The Big Questions: Are We Living Through A Sixth Mass Extinction?
  • Alien Abduction Or A Trick Of The Mind? A Down To Earth Explanation Of Close Encounters
  • Six Months Into Trump’s Presidency, Americans Report Record Low Pride In Being American
  • TikToker Unknowingly Handles Extremely Venomous Cone Snail And Lives To Tell The Tale
  • Scientists Sequence Oldest Egyptian DNA To Date, From A Whopping 4,800 Years Ago
  • “Uncharted Waters”: Large Hadron Collider Begins Colliding Oxygen For The First Time
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version