Siberian hunters stumbled across a frozen bird that scientists have discovered lived around 46,000 years ago, as reported by CNN.
The bird was in such good condition, the hunters originally thought it had just recently died. It has been identified as a female horned lark (Eremophila alpestris), according to the Communications Biology journal, and scientists from the Swedish Museum of Natural History, Nicolas Dussex and Love Dalén, used radiocarbon dating to reveal when the frozen bird was last alive.
Dalén told CNN it’s possible this bird is related to two subspecies of lark living in northern Russia and on the Mongolian steppe.
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Dussex said there may be more discoveries similar to this from the region, due to how well permafrost preserved this frozen bird.
“The fact that such a small and fragile specimen was near intact also suggests that dirt/mud must have been deposited gradually, or at least that the ground was relatively stable so that the bird’s carcass was preserved in a state very close to its time of death.”
Dussex and Dalén also noted the frozen horned lark was discovered at the same site as an 18,000-year-old frozen dog named Bogor that was found last November. Researcher, David Stanton, at the Centre for Palaeogenetics, told CNN they couldn’t tell whether Bogor was a frozen dog or wolf.
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“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. The fact that we can’t might suggest that it’s from a population that was ancestral to both — to dogs and wolves.”
For more science-related news, read about the new Reaper of Death tyrannosaur species or how scientists plan to deflect asteroids away from Earth.
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Jeffrey Lerman is a Freelance News Writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @Snakester95.
Source: IGN.com Frozen Bird Discovered in Siberia Ends Up Being 46,000 Years Old