Yukon gold miner unearths a mummified Ice Age wolf pup

Enlarge / The puppy's remains are dried out but mostly intact thanks to being buried in permafrost. (credit: Government of Yukon)

This Ice Age wolf puppy doesn't look much like a fearsome predator, what with her tiny puppy teeth and soft little ears. According to her DNA, however, the mummified puppy, named Zhur, came from a population that's among the ancestors of all modern wolves. Canada's permafrost freeze-dried her remains shortly after her death around 57,000 years ago.

She's the most complete wolf mummy that's ever been found. She's basically 100 percent intact-all that's missing are her eyes," said Des Moines University paleontologist Julie Meachen.

Puppy surprise

In July 2016, miner Neil Loveless of Favron Enterprises was searching for gold in Canada's famed Klondike gold fields. He was water-blasting the frozen mud along the banks of Last Chance Creek. It's a process called hydraulic thawing," meant to thaw and soften the frozen permafrost so miners can search for gold in the streambed deposits, an approach called placer mining. But Loveless found something far stranger and even more interesting than Klondike gold: a frozen, mummified wolf puppy.

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