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Researchers have discovered what they believe was the unusual last meal of a prehistoric puppy who lived 14,000 years ago.
After re-scanning the mummified canine, the team found preserved remains of a woolly rhino hidden in its stomach – along with the animal’s yellow fur.
The old dog, either a wolf or a dog, seemed frozen in time. Her fur, heart, lungs, teeth and stomach were all intact when it was first discovered in 2011.
Scientists named the three-month-old female Tumat after the village where she was found in the Sakha Republic of Russia. They believe him, and another dog found nearby died in a landslide at the end of the Ice Age.
The incredibly well-preserved remains of a 14,000-year-old puppy were discovered in Siberia in 2011. The dog, a three-month-old researcher named Tumat, still had her fur, heart, lungs, teeth and stomach intact.
The cold Siberian atmosphere helped preserve the two specimens, “ essentially like a giant freezer, keeping things cold for thousands of years, ” researcher Edana Lord of the Center for Paleogenetics told Inverse.
“When an animal is buried quickly after death – for example, if it falls into a crevice – it can mummify,” she continued.
Although plant remains have already been found in prehistoric digestive systems, “it is very unusual to find tissue from another animal preserved in the stomach,” Lord said.
Initially, researchers believed the sample was from a cave lion, a large cat that became extinct about 13,000 years ago.
In Tumat’s stomach, scientists found the remains of another animal. While plant material can appear in the digestive tract, “ it is very unusual to find tissue from another animal, ” said Edana Lord of the Center for Paleogenetics.
But using DNA sequencing, they were able to determine that the prehistoric snack was in fact a woolly rhino.
Their findings were published this month in a report in Current Biology.
The discovery could provide an abundance of information on the behavior, diet, and evolutionary history of prehistoric dogs.
For example, it’s unlikely that a puppy could have slaughtered a rhino on its own.
Lord theorizes that he may have been part of a pack or it is possible that the pup made a good reputation among the early human hunters.
Edana Lord samples DNA from woolly rhinos in a lab. His team initially believed the remains were from a cave lion. But using DNA sequencing, they were able to determine that the prehistoric piece was in fact a woolly rhino.
Previous research suggests that dogs may have been domesticated 32,000 years ago, according to Nature.
“It is certainly very interesting to speculate,” Lord said.
Having well-preserved fur and tissue samples from the predator and its prey makes it easier to analyze DNA, she added, “so that we can get more genetic information from them. and even sequence all of their genomes.
An image of the reconstructed remains of a baby woolly rhino found in Siberia. It’s unlikely that Tumat could have slaughtered a rhino herself, but she could have hunted with a pack or been ‘familiar’ to early humans.
The same report determined that the woolly rhino was ultimately killed by climate change, and not by overhunting by humans, as previously thought.
Once common in Europe and North Asia, the woolly rhinoceros (Coelodonta antiquitatis) became extinct about 14,000 to 15,000 years ago.
Initially, the arrival of humans in the area was dated around the same time. Images of the woolly rhinoceros have been found in rock paintings in Europe and Asia.
Paleontologists speculated that overhunting led to the extinction of the rhino and other Pleistocene creatures, such as the woolly mammoth.
But the recent discovery of older human habitats in Siberia, some of which date back to 30,000 years, meant that the disappearance of the animals did not match the arrival of humans on the scene.
Human hunters were not responsible for the slaughter of the woolly rhino, according to the new study published this month in Current Biology. Instead, scientists say, climate change was to blame
By analyzing the genomes of more than a dozen different rhinos, Lord and his team found that their populations remained “stable and diverse” until just a few millennia before they died out.
“If anything, we’re actually seeing something that looks a bit like an increase in population size during this time. said lead author Love Dalén, an evolutionary geneticist at the Swedish Museum of Natural History.
Dalén said the species, well adapted to the freezing weather of Siberia, simply couldn’t cope with the rising temperatures during a brief period of warming known as the Bølling-Allerød interstadial.
“We are moving away from the idea that humans take charge of everything as soon as they enter an environment, and instead elucidate the role of climate,” Lord added.
“While we cannot rule out human involvement, we suggest that the woolly rhino’s extinction was more likely linked to climate.
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