Scientists have discovered a possible ancestor of today's dogs in Siberian permafrost. The only two months old puppy at his death lay in the ice for 18,000 years before researchers hid him. Due to the low temperatures he was so well preserved that even eyelashes and whiskers remained. This is reported by the Stockholm Center for Paleogenetics.
The puppy was found in the summer of 2018 in the northeastern Siberian Yakutia on the Indigirka River. From the find, the researchers hope to find out when, where and how dogs were first domesticated. The key to this is the DNA of the animal, which was also very well preserved by the cold.
Love Dalén / Center for Palaeogenetics Stockholm / DPA
It is still unclear whether the puppy is a wolf or a dog
Although they have already examined genetic material of the animal for the time being, reported scientists Love Dalén from the center of Stockholm on the news service Twitter, the complex process is not yet completed. According to initial results, the animal is male, Russian researchers named it Dogor, Yakut for "friend". However, it is still unclear whether it is a wolf or a dog.
Here's another amazing find from the Belaya Gora site!
Radiocarbon dating it says 18,000 years old.
Question: is it a #wolf cub, or possibly the oldest # dog ever found?
We are hoping to answer this by sequencing it's genome (it has 43% endogenous DNA).
But what do you think? pic.twitter.com/MTZ918GFBf
"We still do not know exactly where or when dogs were domesticated, and we do not even know from which wolf line they were domesticated," says researcher David Stanton from the Stockholm Center for Paleogenetics in a video. More intensive genetic analysis of the find could possibly clarify this, regardless of whether Dogor ultimately turns out to be a dog or a wolf.
In order to classify a prehistoric animal of a species, scientists analyze the DNA and compare it with the genome of today's dogs and other prehistoric animals. From this it can be roughly stated who is related to whom.
When did the wolf become a dog?
Researchers have long been debating when the wolf became a dog. Presumably, hunters and gatherers eventually began to tame wolves and thus initiated the beginning of the development of the dog. Many scientists assume that today's pets have split off from the wolves in Eurasia roughly 20,000 to 40,000 years ago.
In cats, scientists have already clarified the genesis. According to DNA analysis, the animals were tamed in two waves. The first cats came from the area of today's Turkey 4400 years ago to southeastern Europe. In the first millennium BC, a second genetic line was added. Today, the genetic material of both lines can be found in our domestic cats.
