14,000-year-old mummified ‘puppies' weren't dogs at all, new research shows
Sign up for CNN's Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more.
Two well-preserved ice age 'puppies' found in Northern Siberia may not be dogs at all, according to new research.
Still covered in fur and naturally preserved in ice for thousands of years, the 'Tumat Puppies,' as they are known, contain hints of a last meal in their stomachs, including meat from a woolly rhinoceros and feathers from a small bird called a wagtail.
Previously thought to be early domesticated dogs or tamed wolves living near humans, the animals' remains were found near woolly mammoth bones that had been burned and cut by humans, suggesting the canids lived near a site where humans butchered mammoths.
By analyzing genetic data from the gut contents and chemical signatures in the bones, teeth and soft tissue, researchers now think the animals were 2-month-old wolf pups that show no evidence of interacting with people, according to findings published Thursday in the journal Quaternary Research.
Neither of the mummified wolf cubs, believed to be sisters, show signs of having been attacked or injured, indicating that they died suddenly when their underground den collapsed and trapped them inside more than 14,000 years ago. The den collapse may have been triggered by a landslide, according to the study.
The wealth of data from the remains is shedding light on the everyday life of ice age animals, including how they ate, which is similar to the habits of modern wolves.
'It was incredible to find two sisters from this era so well preserved, but even more incredible that we can now tell so much of their story, down to the last meal that they ate,' wrote lead study author Anne Kathrine Wiborg Runge, formerly a doctoral student at the University of York and the University of Copenhagen, in a statement. 'Whilst many will be disappointed that these animals are almost certainly wolves and not early domesticated dogs, they have helped us get closer to understanding the environment at the time, how these animals lived, and how remarkably similar wolves from more than 14,000 years ago are to modern day wolves.'
The multitude of research on these pups and other specimens also illustrates how difficult it is to prove when dogs, widely regarded as the first domesticated animal, became a part of human society.
Trapped in thawing permafrost, the Tumat Puppies were discovered separately at the Syalakh site, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) from the nearest village of Tumat — one in 2011 and the other in 2015. They are approximately 14,046 to 14,965 years old. Hair, skin, claws and entire stomach contents can survive eons under the right conditions, said study coauthor Dr. Nathan Wales, senior lecturer in archaeology at the University of York in England.
'The most surprising thing to me is that the archaeologists managed to discover the second Tumat Puppy several years after the first was found,' Runge told CNN. 'It is very rare to find two specimens that are so well preserved and then they turn out to be siblings/littermates. It's extraordinary.'
Like modern wolves, the pups ate both meat and plants. Though a woolly rhinoceros would be rather large prey for wolves to hunt, the piece of woolly rhino skin in one pup's stomach is proof of the canids' diet. The rhino skin, bearing blond fur, was only partially digested, suggesting the pups were resting in their den and died shortly after their last meal, Runge said.
The color of the woolly rhino fur is consistent with that of a calf, based on previous research of a juvenile woolly rhino specimen found in the permafrost. Adult woolly rhinos likely had darker fur. The pack of adult wolves hunted the calf and brought it back to the den to feed the pups, according to the study authors.
'The hunting of an animal as large as a wooly rhinoceros, even a baby one, suggests that these wolves are perhaps bigger than the wolves we see today,' Wales wrote in a statement.
The researchers also analyzed tiny plant remains fossilizing in the cubs' stomachs, revealing that the wolves lived in a dry, somewhat mild environment that could support diverse vegetation including prairie grasses, willows and shrub leaves.
In addition to eating solid food, the pups were likely still nursing milk from their mother, according to the researchers.
What scientists didn't find was evidence that mammoths were part of the cubs' diet, meaning it was unlikely that humans at the site were feeding the canids. Is it possible, though, that people shared woolly rhino meat with the cubs? That's something Wales considered, but now he believes the evidence points in the other direction.
'We know that modern wolves will hunt large prey like elk, moose and musk ox, and anyone who watches animal documentaries will know wolves tend to single out juvenile or weaker individuals when they hunt,' Wales wrote in an email. 'I lean toward the interpretation that the Tumat Puppies were fed part of a juvenile wooly rhino (by adult wolves).'
The origin of the woolly rhino meat is impossible to pinpoint — the wolf pack could have hunted the calf or scavenged it from a carcass or even a butchering site — but given the age of the cubs and the fact that the den collapsed on them, it seems less likely that humans fed them directly, Runge said.
That the cubs were being reared in a den and fed by their pack, similarly to how wolves breed and raise their young today, further suggests that the Tumat Puppies were wolves rather than dogs, Wales said.
Painting a broader picture of ice age wolves is difficult because no written sources or cave art depicting them have been found, so it is unclear how wolf packs and ancient humans would have interacted, Runge said.
'We have to try to account for our own biases and preconceived notions based on human-wolf interactions today,' she wrote. 'And then we have to be okay with knowing we'll never be able to answer some of the questions.'
Researchers are still trying to understand how domesticated dogs became companions to humans. One hypothesis is that wolves lived near humans and scavenged their food. But the domestication process would take generations and require humans to tolerate this behavior. Another hypothesis is that humans actively captured and hand-raised wolves, causing some of them to become isolated from wild populations, resulting in early dogs.
Previous DNA tests on the cubs suggested they could have come from a now extinct population of wolves that eventually died out — and a population that did not act as a genetic bridge to modern dogs.
'When we're talking about the origins of dogs, we're talking about the very first domesticated animal,' Wales said. 'And for that reason, scientists have to have really solid evidence to make claims of early dogs.'
All the evidence the authors of the new study found was compatible with the wolves living on their own, Wales said.
'Today, litters are often larger than two, and it is possible that the Tumat Puppies had siblings that escaped (the same) fate,' he said. 'There may also be more cubs hidden in the permafrost or lost to erosion.'
Pinpointing where and when dogs were domesticated is still something of a holy grail in archaeology, evolutionary biology and ancient DNA research, said Dr. Linus Girdland-Flink, a lecturer in biomolecular archaeology at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland. Though Girdland-Flink's research is on ancient wolves and dogs, he was not involved in the new study.
But determining whether ancient remains like the Tumat Puppies are early domestic dogs, wild wolves, scavengers or tamed individuals isn't straightforward because of the fragmented archaeological record, he said. No one piece of evidence can lead to a definitive answer. And it's even harder to do a comparison involving cubs because adult traits help distinguish between wild wolves and domesticated dogs.
'Instead, we have to bring together different lines of proxy evidence — archaeological, morphological, genetic, ecological — and think about how they all fit,' Girdland-Flink wrote in an email. 'So, I really welcome this new multi-disciplinary reanalysis of the Tumat puppies.'
Girdland-Flink wasn't surprised the cubs weren't associated with the mammoth butchering site — an absence of evidence that matters. And combined with the lack of strong genetic ties to domestic dogs, he agreed the cubs must have come from a wolf population that did not live with humans.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Climate Experts Issue Stark Warning About Global Warming Timeline
A new report from more than 60 of the world's top climate scientists paints a sobering picture: humanity could exhaust its carbon budget for limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius in just three years. If current emissions continue unchecked, the long-established target set by the Paris Agreement may soon slip permanently out of reach, BBC News reported. Since the late 1800s, average global temperatures have climbed steadily, driven by relentless carbon dioxide emissions from coal, oil, and gas, as well as widespread deforestation. While the 1.5 °C threshold was meant to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, scientists say we're now hurtling toward it faster than anyone expected. "We're seeing some unprecedented changes," said lead author Professor Piers Forster of the University of Leeds. "The heating of the Earth and sea-level rise are accelerating, and it's tied directly to emissions." The updated analysis, released this week, estimates that only 130 billion metric tons of CO₂ can still be emitted globally to stay under the 1.5 °C limit with a 50 percent chance. At the current rate of around 40 billion tons per year, that leaves just over three years before the budget is spent. Adding to the urgency, last year marked the first time global temperatures exceeded 1.5 °C for an entire 12-month period. While one year doesn't constitute a formal breach of the Paris goal, the trend is alarming. Scientists warn that continued warming will bring more extreme weather, rising sea levels, and ecosystem disruptions, affecting millions of people worldwide. Much of the excess heat has been absorbed by the oceans, leading to faster sea-level rise and marine ecosystem damage. The rate of sea-level rise has doubled since the 1990s. Still, there's a sliver of hope. The report notes that while emissions remain high, their rate of increase has slowed, thanks in part to clean energy technologies. Experts stress that aggressive emission cuts now could still blunt the worst impacts. "Every fraction of a degree matters," said climate scientist Joeri Rogelj. "Reducing emissions today will ease suffering tomorrow."Climate Experts Issue Stark Warning About Global Warming Timeline first appeared on Men's Journal on Jun 19, 2025
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
NASA's New Data Has Scientists Sounding the Alarm on Climate Extremes
The latest satellite data from NASA is painting a troubling picture of Earth's climate, and it's coming into focus faster than expected. According to new research from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, extreme weather events like floods and droughts are not only becoming more common, but also more intense, longer-lasting, and more destructive. The Guardian reported that data from the past five years show these events doubling in intensity compared to averages between 2003 and 2020. Even researchers behind the study admit they didn't anticipate such a dramatic spike. "We were surprised to find the actual population living in rural areas is much higher than the global data indicates," said lead researcher Dr. Bailing Li, who helped compile the figures using NASA's Grace satellite and dam relocation data across 35 countries. The result: a grim confirmation that climate change is fueling a shift in the planet's water systems, and the consequences are just data, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, reveals that global extremes now show a stronger correlation with rising temperatures than with other climate drivers like El Niño. Events are lasting longer, affecting wider areas, and shifting with less predictability—creating what scientists call "hydroclimatic whiplash," sudden transitions from drought to flood or vice versa. What's most worrying isn't just the scale of the change, but how unprepared most of the world remains. Experts say the current infrastructure, especially in water management, was built for a different era—one with a more stable climate. Christopher Gasson of Global Water Intelligence warned that most water systems are facing extremes from both ends—too much water or too little—and that investment must scale quickly to keep up. Meteorologists and climate experts across the globe echoed the concern. Richard Betts of the UK's Met Office called the data "a stark reminder" that what was once theoretical is now reality. He stressed that most societies have built their systems around past weather patterns, leaving them vulnerable to extremes that now fall outside the historical norm. With the World Meteorological Organization predicting an 80% chance that one of the next five years will be Earth's hottest ever, the window for adapting is narrowing. NASA's findings serve as a warning: the planet is heating up, and the consequences are already surging across every New Data Has Scientists Sounding the Alarm on Climate Extremes first appeared on Men's Journal on Jun 22, 2025
Washington Post
3 hours ago
- Washington Post
New marine life database touted as tool for ocean research
Biologists have launched a database of marine animals' body sizes that they say could help preserve biodiversity in Earth's oceans. Why bother measuring animals' body size? In an article in Global Ecology and Biogeography, researchers write that body size affects animals in a multitude of ways, from their behavior and favorite foods to their physiology and habitat choices.
