Pleistocene wolf discovered

[Lee Borgersen]

The severed head of a prehistoric wolf was found in Siberia — perfectly preserved
study to learn more about this mostly unknown creature.

 .....June 12

   
The head of the first full-sized Pleistocene wolf has been discovered in eastern Siberia — and it’s still intact.

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Paleontologists believe the wolf, whose head had been preserved in permafrost for about 30,000 years, was fully grown at 2 to 4 years old when it died. A photo of the head shows it measures 15.7 inches long, which is notably bigger than the 9.1-to-11-inch length of the modern gray wolf’s head.

Scientists discovered in recent years that a close relative of modern-day wolves lived in the Northern Hemisphere during the last ice age, said Love Dalén, one of the paleontologists studying the wolf’s head. These Pleistocene steppe wolves come from a different evolutionary lineage than modern-day wolves, Dalén said, and were slightly larger with more robust jaw bones.

“There are numerous samples from them in terms of bones and teeth and so on, but this is the first frozen carcass from an adult wolf that has been found," Dalén, of the Swedish Museum of Natural History, said in an interview.
[This puppy was frozen for 12,400 years, and its body is nearly intact — fur and all]

A man who lives in the Abyisky district of Yakutia discovered the head last year. Dalén said he and other scientists were filming a documentary there when a Russian who had been searching for mammoth tusks brought the wolf’s head to their camp.
Scientists recently announced the find at the opening of a woolly mammoth exhibit in Tokyo.

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The Swedish Museum of Natural History plans to study the wolf’s DNA, fur and skull, Dalén said, with help from scientists in Japan, Russia, the United States and other nations. Some of them are creating a digital model of the brain and the skull’s interior, Albert Protopopov, of the Republic of Sakha Academy of Sciences, told CNN.
As global temperatures rise, Dalén said melting permafrost is causing more animal carcasses to surface. In this case, though, he said Siberian locals were excavating mammoth tusks by blasting away the permafrost.

     

enlarge photo.....

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