Mystery of an 18,000-year-old puppy, frozen in time
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'Dogor,' an 18,000-year-old wolf pup, survived almost intact -- down to the whiskers -- in Siberian permafrost. (Image credit: Sergey Fedorov/The Siberian Times)
https://www.livescience.com/siberian-...
frozen in ice
A mummified pup discovered in Siberia is not a dog, new research finds. Rather, the cute-and-cuddly canine is actually a young wolf.
In a new study aimed at understanding dog domestication, researchers analyzed the genome of the puppy, along with the genomes of 72 ancient wolves. The pup, which was found in the Siberian permafrost in 2018 and whose lineage has been debated ever since, was nicknamed "Dogor" and was fully intact, with pettable fur and unbroken whiskers. At first, scientists couldn't tell if the 18,000-year-old pup was a wolf or a dog, but the new analysis revealed that it was a wolf — and that it was not very closely related to the earliest dogs.
"We know that dogs were the first animal to be domesticated way back in the ice age," said Anders Bergström, a postdoctoral fellow in ancient genomics at the Francis Crick Institute in London. But other aspects of their domestication are some of the big mysteries of human prehistory, he told Live Science. "We don't know where in the world it happened," Bergström said. "We don't know what human group was involved, and we don't know whether it happened once or multiple times."
'Dogor,' an 18,000-year-old wolf pup, survived almost intact -- down to the whiskers -- in Siberian permafrost. (Image credit: Sergey Fedorov/The Siberian Times)
https://www.livescience.com/siberian-...
frozen in ice
A mummified pup discovered in Siberia is not a dog, new research finds. Rather, the cute-and-cuddly canine is actually a young wolf.
In a new study aimed at understanding dog domestication, researchers analyzed the genome of the puppy, along with the genomes of 72 ancient wolves. The pup, which was found in the Siberian permafrost in 2018 and whose lineage has been debated ever since, was nicknamed "Dogor" and was fully intact, with pettable fur and unbroken whiskers. At first, scientists couldn't tell if the 18,000-year-old pup was a wolf or a dog, but the new analysis revealed that it was a wolf — and that it was not very closely related to the earliest dogs.
"We know that dogs were the first animal to be domesticated way back in the ice age," said Anders Bergström, a postdoctoral fellow in ancient genomics at the Francis Crick Institute in London. But other aspects of their domestication are some of the big mysteries of human prehistory, he told Live Science. "We don't know where in the world it happened," Bergström said. "We don't know what human group was involved, and we don't know whether it happened once or multiple times."
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