Ice Age preserved puppy apparently ate woolly rhino before dying

When a team of Russian researchers analyzed the remains of a preserved 14,000-year-old puppy, they noticed an unusual patch of fur inside its stomach. After some mitochondrial DNA reference checks, the team was surprised that the fur belonged to a woolly rhino – “an almost perfect match.”

The puppy was discovered in Tumut, Siberia, in 2011. Kept with its fur intact, the small canine body resembled a dog or a wolf.

In Siberia, other research teams have also discovered well-preserved cave lion cubs (Panthera spelaea) with yellow fur. Initially, the team assumed that the patch of fur the puppy consumed was the rest of a cub to be the same color until their results confirmed otherwise.

Scientists at the Museum of Natural History in Stockholm have confirmed that the DNA in fur is far from the cave lion, evolutionary geneticist Love Dalen. He had also worked with the team that discovered the lion cubs in Spartak and Borris caves around 43,000 years ago.

Woolly rhinoceros

“It’s totally unknown. I don’t know of any frozen carnivores from the Ice Age where they found pieces of tissue inside,” Dalen said. the radiocarbon dated hairy tissue sample and it was confirmed to be around 14,400 years old.

They also dated the radiocarbon pup to be around 14,000 years old, around the time the woolly rhino went extinct. “So, potentially, this puppy ate one of the last remaining woolly rhinos,” Dalen explained.

During the Pliocene and Pleistocene eras, over five million to 11,000 years ago, woolly rhinos roamed Asia, North Africa and parts of Europe. They were roughly the same size as modern rhinos with two horns and thick fur.

They thrived in the prairies and were seen in many paintings and sculptures during the Stone Age. Other evidence also revealed that their population decline was not due to being hunted by humans, but rather sudden weather changes during the Bølling-Allerød interstadial (Greenland Interstadial) – a short hot and humid period before the last ice age. By the last ice age, they were completely extinct.

Several frozen woolly rhino carcasses have been found in Siberia while others have been found in oil seeps in central Europe. The oldest woolly rhino was discovered on the Tibetan plateau and was found to be over three million years old.

(Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

READ MORE: Cave lions and modern-day lions are separate species

Mysterious death

The team still doesn’t know how the little dog ate a piece of the ancient rhino, and the deaths of the two creatures remain a mystery. Due to its massive size, the puppy was unlikely to attack or kill the Woolly Rhino.

Dalen also shared that the hairy tissue was not well digested, which suggests the puppy died shortly after eating Woolly Rhino. He hypothesized that an adult wolf – that is, assuming the puppy is a wolf – would eat the rhino and leave some for its young. Perhaps the little one crossed paths with a dead baby rhino and was attacked and killed by the mother rhino.

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