A 18,000-year-old dog found from a tunnel in Siberia is making rounds on social media and scientists believe it could be the oldest dog ever.
The images doing round on the social media could make anyone believe that the dog is alive or even from a closest view a recently dead animal as it was in a perfectly preserved condition.
Two researchers, Love Dalén and Dave Stanton found it in the summer of 2018 and had fur on its body and a perfect set of teeth.
David Stanton (@Nibbledtodeath) from the Centre for Palaeogenetics (@CpgSthlm) tells @bevvo14 what they can learn from examining the perfectly preserved body of a puppy believed to be more than 18,000 years old… #Dogor #TheWorld pic.twitter.com/qi37i6zy7n
— ABC News (@abcnews) November 28, 2019
Love and Dave began the study in order to figure out if the body is of a dog or a wolf. If it turns out to be a dog, it will be the world’s oldest confirmed dog.
Love, a professor of evolutionary genetics, told British media outlets: “It’s pretty special because you’re holding it and it really feels like a very recently dead animal.”
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Sergey Fedorov, a museum worker in Russsia, carefully cleaned the 18,000-year-old animal. He said, I really carefully removed the dirt and other debris stuck to its body step by step, revealing a wonderful condition fur which is extremely rare for animals of that time period.
Just imagine, this puppy has been lying underground in the same pose and condition for 18,000 years without being disturbed at all, he added.
Centre for Palaeogenetics in Sweden confirmed in its tweet that the discovered animal was a male dog and was named Dogor- Yakutian word for friend- from Russian colleagues.
We now have some news on the 18,000 year old #wolf or #dog puppy.
Genome analyses shows it’s a male. So we asked our Russian colleagues to name it…
Thus, the name of the puppy is Dogor!
Dogor is a Yakutian word for “friend”, which seems very suitable. pic.twitter.com/epIz8mEpVW
— Centre for Palaeogenetics (@CpgSthlm) November 25, 2019
