12 June 2019
A 40,000-year-old detached wolf head (click here) - with its brain intact - has been found in Siberia by scientists.
The snarling wolf head measuring 40cm long - about half of the full body length of a modern wolf - was discovered preserved in permafrost in North Yakutia, Siberia.
The prehistoric remains were found by a local man named Pavel Efimov in the summer of 2018, between June and August, in a remote area near a river - but the find has only just been revealed.
The 40,000-year-old wolf - dated by Japanese scientists - was fully grown at two to four years old when it died, and it still has its thick mammoth fur and extraordinary fangs intact, reports The Siberian Times....
...The DNA examination will take place at the Swedish Museum of Natural History and the discovery was announced in Tokyo, Japan, at the Woolly Mammoth exhibition.
Alongside the wolf head, scientists also presented a well-preserved cave lion cub named Spartak, which was found around the same time.
"Their muscles, organs and brains are in good condition," said professor of paleontology and medicine Naoki Suzuki, who studied the remains with a CT scanner.
"We want to assess their physical capabilities and ecology by comparing them with the lions and wolves of today."
