Dog or…
A puppy found in Yakutia may be the oldest dog in the world
Yulia Vorobyova, Vesti
Researchers from the Swedish Center for Paleogenetics (CPG) and the Northeastern Federal University named after M. K. Ammosov (NEFU) are studying the remains of a puppy aged 18 thousand years. The discovery was made in the summer of 2018 near the urban-type settlement of Belaya Gora, northeast of Yakutsk.
In the permafrost, the ice mummy was perfectly preserved: even the mustache and eyelashes were not damaged. According to scientists, it looks like the animal died quite recently.
Photo by Sergey Fedorov.
According to the milk teeth, experts found that the puppy died at the age of two months. The cause of his death could not be determined.
However, this is not the most intriguing question. Researchers have no doubt that the young male is a representative of canids, but they cannot understand who exactly this cub was – a wolf, a dog or a representative of their ancient ancestors?
Paleogeneticists sequenced the genome, but the analysis did not give clues. This surprised scientists. The first DNA tests were supposed to indicate whether it was a wolf or a dog, Love Dalén, professor of evolutionary genetics at CPG, told The Siberian Times portal.
"Our center has the largest DNA bank in Europe for all dogs from all over the world. But in this case, we could not identify [the puppy] on the first attempt," the professor admitted.
Subsequently, the specialists conducted another genome sequencing, but the repeated analysis did not bring them closer to the solution.
"What if it's a dog – perhaps one of the most ancient domestic animals that coexisted with humans? We can't wait to get the results of further tests. They can bring closer the solution of the origin of dogs from Late Pleistocene wolves," added co–author of the study Sergey Fedorov from the NEFU Institute of Applied Ecology of the North.
Scientists explain: difficulties with identification arose, among other things, because the remains belong to the period when the divergence of species occurred. It is believed that dogs and wolves separated from 15 to 40 thousand years ago.
Now no version is excluded: the puppy may be an early representative of modern wolves, a late Pleistocene wolf, the earliest known dog, or a representative of some unknown transitional species.
Specialists working with the remains dubbed the puppy Dogor, translated from Yakut as "friend". But there is a symbolic wordplay hidden in this nickname: the English Dogor can be divided into two words – dog or, which means "dog or ...?".
Scientists are not going to give up. In the next step, they will sequence DNA from the puppy's rib. It is hoped that this analysis will allow us to determine the place of Dogor on the evolutionary tree.
Perhaps this work will eventually help to obtain new data on the domestication of dogs by ancient people.
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