Scientists reveal almost virgin prehistoric lion cubs found in Russia: “She even had mustaches”

A team of researchers led by Russian scientists recently revealed two almost virgin prehistoric lion cubs found frozen on the banks of a Siberian river.

Boris Berezhnev has regularly searched the banks of the Semyuelyakh River for mammoth tusks, which he is licensed to collect. Instead, he stumbled upon two lion cubs preserved for tens of thousands of years.

Berezhnev found the first cub, a male specimen nicknamed Boris, in 2017; he discovered the second cub, a female specimen nicknamed Sparta, in 2018, just 15 meters (about 50 feet) from the first cub, EcoWatch reported.

Sparta has been preserved in almost perfect condition.

“Sparta is probably the best-preserved ice age animal ever found and is more or less intact, aside from the slightly ruffled fur,” Love Dalén, co-author of a new study on the find said Friday. . graduated from Stockholm University. “She even kept the mustaches.”

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Boris was rated “a little more damaged, but still good enough”.

Researchers initially believed the cubs could be siblings, but radiocarbon dating indicated Sparta was around 28,000 years old while Boris was over 43,000 years old.

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The cave lion died out about 10,000 years ago.

The cubs were about the same age when they died, around 1 to 2 months, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Quarternary.

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The study explores the possible cause of each cub’s death as well as some important characteristics, such as the possibility that the cave lion’s fur coloring may have adapted to the snowy landscape.

Dalen speculates that the quality of the preservation, as well as some damage to the skulls and ribs, indicates that the cubs died in a mudslide or similar natural event.

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The study was led by Gennady Boeskorov of the Institute of Diamond and Precious Metals Geology of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and included other researchers from Russia, France, Sweden, from the UK and Japan, CBC reported.