In 2011, an unusual find in northern Siberia piqued the interest of the scientific community.

It seemed that a 14,000 year old puppy had been unearthed from an ancient site close to the village of Tumat.

Then things got even more interesting in 2015, as a second preserved puppy was recovered from the same site (the Syalakh site), where woolly mammoth bones had also been found, the latter showing evidence of having been hunted by humans.

The reason for all this excitement? Science wondered whether it had found evidence of the origins of man’s best friend, the dog.

Of course, a significant part of the interest in the Tumat puppies was how well preserved they were.

Given their lack of injury, comparable age, and full stomachs, scientists hypothesize that these were two puppies from the same litter that were sleeping in an underground den which was subject to a landslide.

14,000 years later, their bodies were unearthed from the Siberian permafrost, perfectly preserved with even the contents of their stomachs frozen in time.

And it is this evidence that has led researchers from the University of York in the UK to prove once and for all exactly what animal these puppies were.

In their research, which was recently published in the journal Quaternary Research, the team from the University of York – alongside researchers from Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Russia and Sweden – demonstrated that the puppies were in fact cubs, wolf cubs.

Their evidence proved not only their species, but the cubs’ stage of development: among the traces found in their stomachs, bones, and teeth, the researchers were able to identify that the cubs were still being nursed by their mother, but that they were eating solid food too.

In a particularly surprising turn of events, one thing they had eaten was the meat of a woolly rhinoceros, giving the scientists an insight into the potential size and hunting prowess of ancient wolves, as the University of York’s Dr Nathan Wales explained in a statement:

“We can see that their diets were varied, consisting of both animal meat and plant life, much like that of modern wolves. The hunting of an animal as large as a wooly rhinoceros, even a baby one, suggests that these wolves are perhaps bigger than the wolves we see today, but still consistent in many ways, because wolves still tend to hunt easy prey while some of the pack is engaged in cub rearing.”

Though their meal could have been a rhinoceros calf, this still would have been vastly more ambitious than the prey of today’s wolf populations.

Sadly for dog lovers, this research does rule out that the Tumat puppies marked the origin of our modern day pet dogs – and shows that appearances can be deceiving.

Though early hypotheses suggested that their fur color was a closer match with early dogs than other species, this is not the case, as the University of York’s Anne Kathrine Runge continued in the statement:

“Whilst many will be disappointed that these animals are almost certainly wolves and not early domesticated dogs, they have helped us get closer to understanding the environment at the time, how these animals lived, and how remarkably similar wolves from more than 14,000 years ago are to modern day wolves.

It also means that the mystery of how dogs evolved into the domestic pet we know today deepens, as one of our clues – the black fur colour – may have been a red herring given its presence in wolf cubs from a population that is not related to domestic dogs.”

Though it may not be the answer that many were hoping for, the incredible preservation of the Tumat puppies is inarguably something to marvel at.

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