Permafrost Pup Found in Siberia 18,000 Years Old

Scientists are trying to figure out if a frozen-in-time 18,000-year-old puppy is a dog or wolf — or an evolutionary link between them, CNN reported.

The puppy named Dogor — which means "friend" in the Yakut language  —was two months old when it died in Siberia, and was preserved in the permafrost, with its fur, nose and teeth all intact. 

But DNA hasn’t been able to determine the species — and that could mean the permafrost pup represents an evolutionary link between wolves and modern dogs, the news outlet noted.

Researcher Dave Stanton at the Centre for Palaeogenetics in Sweden told CNN the DNA sequencing problem meant the puppy could have come from a population that’s a common ancestor for both dogs and wolves.

"We have a lot of data from it already, and with that amount of data, you'd expect to tell if it was one or the other," he told the news outlet.

But another researcher from the center, Love Dalen, wondered if the specimen could possibly be “the oldest dog ever found."

Modern dogs are believed to be descendants of wolves, but there is debate over when dogs were domesticated. A study published in 2017 suggested domestication could’ve occurred 20,000 to 40,000 years ago.

• Wolf-Dog Hybrid 'Yuki' Gains National Attention
• Montana 'Dogman' Is Merely an Ordinary Gray Wolf