It has lain hidden for tens of thousands of years in the Siberian permafrost but recently a team of scientists unearthed an ancient horse, the oldest and best preserved specimen to date.
He is about to end up run over, his mother saves himIt remained hidden for tens of thousands of years in the Siberian permafrost but recently a team of scientists unearthed an ancient horse, the oldest and best preserved specimen to date.
Frozen in ice for millennia, this mummy belonged to a young foal who died between 30.000 and 40.000 years ago. Its body is almost intact and the remains have been preserved due to the cold and ice: the skin, hooves, tail and even the tiny hairs of the animal's nostrils and around the hooves are still visible.
An international Russian-Japanese team of paleontologists found the mummified body of the young animal inside the Batagaika crater, 100 meters deep, during an expedition to the Batagai Depression and the Yunyugen area, in Yakutia.
The colt was about two months old when he died, possibly drowned in some sort of natural trap, according to the hypothesis by Grigory Savvinov, deputy head of the North-Eastern Federal University in Yakutsk, Russia, who participated in the research.
Surprisingly, the body is intact and measures approximately 98 centimeters, according to The Siberian Times. Scientists have collected samples of the foal's hair and tissue for testing and are now working to study the contents of the animal's intestines and to discover nutrition.
Wild horses still inhabit Yakutia today, but the foal belonged to an extinct species that lived in the region 30.000 to 40.000 years ago. Known as Lenskaya or Equus caballus lenensis, this ancient species was genetically distinct from modern horses.
Under the permafrost ...
It has happened other times. When the Siberian permafrost melts, now more and more often due to the global increase in temperatures, the remains of species that lived thousands of years ago emerge from the ice. Recent discoveries include a 9000-year-old bison; a 10.000-year-old woolly rhino cub, a lion or lynx and a small mammoth nicknamed Lyuba who died after suffocating in mud 40.000 years ago.
The latest discovery concerns a group of nematodes, prehistoric worms dating back to the Pleistocene, which were literally thawed and brought back to life after 42.000 years.
To learn more: Worms frozen in 42.000-year-old permafrost come back to life
Unfortunately, the melting of permafrost, in addition to providing another proof of climate change, does not always reveal pleasant surprises. In 2016, some anthrax spores in Siberia who killed more than 2000 reindeer and made dozens of people sick.
Inevitable gifts of global warming ...
READ also:
- Huge reserves of mercury buried in the melting permafrost
- The prehistoric plant brought back to life after 30 thousand years
Francesca Mancuso
Photo: Michil Yakovlev/SVFU via Siberian Times
