{"id":402665,"date":"2020-12-18T08:03:12","date_gmt":"2020-12-18T13:03:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.marketnewsdesk.com\/?p=402665"},"modified":"2020-12-18T08:03:12","modified_gmt":"2020-12-18T13:03:12","slug":"ancient-wolf-pup-mummy-uncovered-in-yukon-permafrost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.marketnewsdesk.com\/index.php\/ancient-wolf-pup-mummy-uncovered-in-yukon-permafrost\/","title":{"rendered":"Ancient wolf pup mummy uncovered in Yukon permafrost"},"content":{"rendered":"

\nSTRICTLY UNDER EMBARGO UNTIL 11:00 AM ET (US) ON MONDAY, DECEMBER 21, 2020
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Des Moines University, Des Moines, Iowa, Dec. 18, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — STRICTLY UNDER EMBARGO UNTIL 11:00 AM ET (US) ON MONDAY, DECEMBER 21, 2020<\/p>\n

While water blasting at a wall of frozen mud in Yukon, Canada, a gold miner made an extraordinary discovery: a perfectly preserved wolf pup that had been locked in permafrost for 57,000 years. The remarkable condition of the pup, named Zh\u00f9r by the local Tr\u2019ond\u00ebk Hw\u00ebch\u2019in people, gave researchers a wealth of insights about her age, lifestyle and relationship to modern wolves. The findings appear December 21 in the journal Current Biology<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s the most complete wolf mummy that\u2019s ever been found. She\u2019s basically 100 percent intact\u2014all that\u2019s missing are her eyes,\u201d says first author Julie Meachen, an associate professor of anatomy at Des Moines University. \u201cAnd the fact that she\u2019s so complete allowed us to do so many lines of inquiry on her to basically reconstruct her life.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the most important questions about Zh\u00f9r that the researchers sought to answer was how she ended up preserved in permafrost to begin with. It takes a unique combination of circumstances to produce a permafrost mummy.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s rare to find these mummies in the Yukon. The animal has to die in a permafrost location, where the ground is frozen all the time, and they have to get buried very quickly, like any other fossilization process,\u201d says Meachen. \u201cIf it lays out on the frozen tundra too long it\u2019ll decompose or get eaten.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another important factor is how the wolf died. Animals that die slowly or are hunted by predators are less likely to be found in pristine condition.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe think she was in her den and died instantaneously by den collapse,\u201d says Meachen. \u201cOur data showed that she didn\u2019t starve and was about seven weeks old when she died, so we feel a bit better knowing the poor little girl didn\u2019t suffer for too long.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to learning how Zh\u00f9r died, the team were also able to analyze her diet. As it turns out, her diet was heavily influenced by how close she lived to water.<\/p>\n

\u201cNormally when you think of wolves in the Ice Age, you think of them eating bison or musk oxen or other large animals on land. One thing that surprised us was that she was eating aquatic resources, particularly salmon.\u201d<\/p>\n

Analyzing Zh\u00f9r\u2019s genome also confirmed that she is descended from ancient wolves from Russia, Siberia, and Alaska, who are the ancestors of modern wolves as well. Although analyzing Zh\u00f9r gave the researchers many answers about wolves of the past, there remain some outstanding questions about Zh\u00f9r and her family.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been asked why she was the only wolf found in the den, and what happened to her mom or siblings,\u201d says Meachen. \u201cIt could be that she was an only pup. Or the other wolves weren\u2019t in the den during the collapse. Unfortunately, we\u2019ll never know.\u201d<\/p>\n

The specimen holds special significance for the local Tr\u2019ond\u00ebk Hw\u00ebch\u2019in people, who have agreed to place Zh\u00f9r on display at the Yukon Beringia Interpretive Centre in Whitehorse. She is cleaned and conserved so she will stay intact for years to come, allowing her to travel to other Yukon locations as well. And the research team predicts there may be more and more permafrost mummies found in the coming years.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne small upside of climate change is that we\u2019re going to find more of these mummies as permafrost melts,\u201d says Meachen. \u201cThat\u2019s a good way for science to reconstruct that time better, but it also shows us how much our planet is actually warming. We really need to be careful.\u201d<\/p>\n

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This work was supported by the MJ Murdock Charitable Trust awarded to Dr. Matthew Wooller at UAF. Current Biology, Meachen et al.:<\/p>\n

\u201cA mummified Pleistocene gray wolf pup (Canis lupus) from Yukon Territory, Canada\u201d https:\/\/www.cell.com\/current-biology\/fulltext\/S0960-9822(20)31686-9 DOI: 10.1016\/j.cub.2020.11.011<\/p>\n

Current Biology (@CurrentBiology), published by Cell Press, is a bimonthly journal that features papers across all areas of biology. Current Biology strives to foster communication across fields of biology, both by publishing important findings of general interest and through highly accessible front matter for non-specialists. Visit: http:\/\/www.cell.com\/current-biology. To receive Cell Press media alerts, contact press@cell.com. <\/p>\n

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