麻豆淫院

A team of archaeologists, natural scientists, evolutionary specialists and paleontologists affiliated with a number of institutions across Europe, and also Russia and the U.K., has found evidence strongly suggesting that the famous Tumat puppies were not domesticated dogs as many have suggested, but were instead wolves. In their paper in the journal Quaternary Research, the group describes their extensive study of the two canine remains and what they found.

In 2011, ivory hunters looking for frozen mammoths in Siberia came across one of the Tumat puppies, which led researchers to begin digging at the site. Four years later, they found another puppy that looked very much like the first. Both puppies were well-preserved, and both had some dark black fur鈥攆eatures that led them to become well-known in the science community. A previous hypothesis suggested that the black fur was based on a mutation unique to dogs, but this new study suggests some species of ancient wolf may also have had this coloration.

In this new effort, the researchers took a new look at the puppies, hoping to determine if they were dogs or wolves.

After conducting a genetic analysis, the researchers found they were both wolves, not dogs. They were also female siblings. And because they showed no signs of injury, the research team suggests they had been in their den and were buried alive by a landslide, which also explained why they were so well-preserved. After studying the contents of their guts and the remains themselves, the researchers were able to date the pair of wolves to approximately 14,000 years ago, putting them in the Late Pleistocene.

One of the materials in the gut was a surprise to the team; woolly rhinoceros tissue. Prior research has suggested that such creatures were too large to be brought down by wolves鈥攅ven by a pack of them鈥攖hough the paper raised the possibility that the woolly rhinoceros may have been a young calf. Still, such evidence suggests early wolves may have been larger than previously thought. Additionally, the researchers found milk in their guts, indicating the pair had not yet been fully weaned.

The research team also found a variety of plant material in the guts of the wolf pups, which suggests that, like modern wolves, ancient wolves had a varied diet. They also note it was likely the mother of the two pups was raising more than two of them, which suggests the others escaped the landslide or are still buried somewhere in the vicinity.

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