These puppies in the ice age were in fact wolves, and their stomachs were full of woolly rhinoceros

A domestic dog or a wolf? The difference seems fairly easy to spot today, but the distinction was not always so obvious. For years, scientists have struggled to determine whether a pair of frozen puppies around 14,000 years ago were early dogs or wolves. Now, a new analysis could end this debate, confirming that frozen puppies were probably not early domestic dogs, but wolves, based on bones, teeth and soft tissue of animals.

Published today in Quaternary researchThe analysis also shows that the two puppies were brothers and sisters – sisters around two months – and ate a diet of milk, meat and plants, with woolly rhinos like final feast.

“It was incredible to find two sisters of this time so well preserved, but even more incredible that we can now tell a large part of their history, until the last meal they ate,” said Anne Kathrine Runge, study author of the Archeology Department of the University of York, according to a press release.

Find out more: The origins of dogs: when were dogs domesticated?

Discovery of glacial puppies

Forced in the ground and ice approximately 14,000 years ago, the “tumor puppies” were found in Siberia – about 40 kilometers from the village of Tumat – in 2011 and 2015. Their bodies were discovered inside their den, where they were trapped, buried and frozen after a probable landslide, around what seemed to be a site of the human gearmer.

The fact that the puppies were discovered so close to a human meeting place, where the burnt bones of woolly mammoths were scattered, created a debate to find out if the puppies were dogs or early domestic wolves. Tending to determine their true identity, a previous study suggested that puppies were probably wolves from a population that has disappeared without any link with domestic dogs today.

To confirm this conclusion, the new analysis of bones, teeth and soft tissue indicates that lifestyles and diets of puppies were much more suitable for wolves than domestic dogs.

“Although many are disappointed that these animals are almost certainly wolves and not early domestic dogs, they helped us get closer to the understanding of the environment at the time, how these animals lived and the way the remarkably similar wolves of more than 14,000 years ago are modern wolves,” said Runge in the press release.

Find out more: The old wolf DNA suggests two modern dog origins

Woolly rhino

The contents of the stomach of puppies, which were absent from mammoth meat, were a particularly strong sign that the puppies were probably wolves.

Instead of hanging around humans for food, puppies have consumed solid foods such as birds, herbs, leaves and twigs, as well as their mother’s milk.

“We can see that their diet was varied, composed of both animal meat and plant life, much like that of modern wolves,” said Nathan Wales, another study author of the Archeology Department of the University of York, according to the press release. This varied diet also suggests that they lived in an environment similar to modern wolves, surrounded by various habitats and their inhabitants.

On the basis of the sound of digestion, the woolly rhinoceros meat was the last meal of the wolf puppies – a surprising discovery, given the massive size of the creature compared to the majority of modern wolf prey. As such, meat probably came from a woolly rhino veal, driven and fed puppies by adult wolves, which were perhaps larger in the ice age than today.

“Hunting of an animal as large as [woolly] Rhinoceros, even a baby, suggests that these wolves may be larger than the wolves we see today, “said Wales.

According to the team, the soft fabrics of puppies provide important information on the life and lifestyles of wolves that are not always provided by bones and teeth.

“We know that gray wolves have existed as a species for hundreds of thousands of years,” said Wales. “The soft fabrics preserved in the tumat puppies, however, give us access to other ways to study wolves and their evolutionary line.”

Find out more: How dogs have co-evolved only with humans like no other species

Sources of articles

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Sam Walters is a journalist covering archeology, paleontology, ecology and the evolution of Discover, as well as an assortment of other subjects. Before joining the Discover team as a deputy editor in 2022, Sam studied journalism at the Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.