Six years ago, scientists discovered a remarkably preserved cave lion cub in Siberia’s permafrost. Despite 28,000 years since its death, the cub

Immaculately Preserved Saber-Tooth Cat Cub Found in Siberian Permafrost

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2024-11-17 13:00:31

Six years ago, scientists discovered a remarkably preserved cave lion cub in Siberia’s permafrost. Despite 28,000 years since its death, the cub remained in near-perfect condition by the frozen soil. Now, a different team of researchers has described a similarly preserved saber-tooth cat cub, giving us a portal into the Pleistocene Epoch.

The saber-tooth cat, unearthed in 2020, is only now being scientifically described. The mummy includes the animal’s entire head and one forelimb, its shoulders and ribcage, and one of its hind legs. The team focused its research on the mummy’s head and dental features to determine the species of saber-tooth cat, and better understand the species’ geographic distribution and its unique morphology. The team’s findings were published this week in the Nature journal Scientific Reports.

“The studied frozen mummified cub confirms the modern reconstructions of the life appearance of Homotherium, made from the bone remains of adult individuals,” said Alexey Lopatin, a paleontologist at the Borissiak Paleotological Institute in Russia and lead author of the paper, in an email to Gizmodo. “It also complements the external features—the fur color, the muzzle size, ear size, the shape of the foot pads, etc. These characters cannot be seen on skeleton remains.”

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