Russian scientists conduct autopsy on 44,000-year-old permafrost wolf carcass

YAKUTSK, Russia, June 28 (Reuters) – In Russia’s far northeastern Yakutia region, local scientists are performing an autopsy on a wolf frozen in permafrost for around 44,000 years, a find they said was the first of its kind.

Found by chance by locals in Yakutia’s Abyyskiy district in 2021, the wolf’s body is only now being properly examined by scientists.

“This is the world’s first discovery of a late Pleistocene predator,” said Albert Protopopov, head of the department for the study of mammoth fauna at the Yakutia Academy of Sciences.