Frozen wolf turns out to be 44,000 years old prompting scientists to check its gut for ancient viruses
Mia Williams
Featured Image Credit: North-Eastern Federal University/jitendrajadhav/Getty Images
A ‘remarkable’ wolf that has been frozen for 44,000 years could lead scientists to the development of future medicines.
This 44,000-year-old wolf looks pretty good for its age - but it has been frozen for the vast majority of those years.
But it seems as though the wolf is going to be very useful to scientists, who say that it could give an indication as to what its lifestyle and diet were like during the Pleistocene era.
By studying the frozen wolf, researchers are hoping to learn more about ancient bacteria and how the wolf is related to modern animals.
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The wolf was found back in 2021, when residents of Yakutia in eastern Russia found the wolf in thick permafrost.
Researchers at North-Eastern Federal University in Yakutsk are now studying the ancient animal to see what they can learn.
Surprisingly after over 400 centuries, the wolf’s teeth and much of its fur are still intact, as are some of its organs.
Robert Losey, an anthropologist at the University of Alberta, told Business Insider: “It's shocking, actually.
“It's the only complete adult Pleistocene wolf that's ever been found, so that in itself is really remarkable and completely unique.”
There’s so much that researchers can take from the ground-breaking discovery - including its genetics, lifestyle, diet, and even what kind of ancient bacteria and viruses it had.
Artemy Goncharov, a researcher at the Institute of Experimental Medicine, added: “Living bacteria can survive for thousands of years, which are a kind of witnesses of those ancient times.”
After discovering that the wolf was an adult male, they concluded that it would have hunted mammoths such as woolly rhinoceroses, extinct horses, bison, and reindeer.
Even more shocking, is that the scientists have predicted that remains of those animals may still even be present in the wolf’s gut.
To see if their predictions are correct, researchers took samples of its stomach and digestive tract - but are still awaiting the results.
And this is where things get even more interesting.
Researchers have claimed that the wolf could play a crucial role in the development of future medicines.
To do this, they will aim to tease out what functions ancient microbes performed in the wolf's gut, and whether it had parasites.
Some microorganisms could be unknown to modern day science, which would be the biggest revelation of all.