The mummified remains of an Arctic ground squirrel, about 30,000 years old, were recently discovered in Canada.
The discovery was revealed by the Yukon Beringia Interpretive Center. They explained that the squirrel was found in the icy depths of the Yukon, near Hester Creek in the Klondike Gold Fields, in Trʼondëk Hwëchʼin territory.
“It is amazing to think that this little guy ran across the Yukon several thousand years ago,” the Yukon Beringia Interpretive Center said in a social media post.
With the help of the Alpine Veterinary Medical Center, the squirrel underwent an X-ray which revealed that its skeleton remains incredibly intact.
The team added that the specimen will soon be on display at the Beringia Center for the public to view.
“It’s not entirely recognizable until you see these little hands and these claws, and you see a little tail, and then you see ears,” Grant Zazula, a Yukon government paleontologist, told the CBC.
“I study bones all the time and they are exciting, they are very good. But when you see an animal that is perfectly preserved, that is 30,000 years old, and you can see its face, its skin, its hair and all that, it’s so visceral. It brings so much life to it,” he continued.
Despite the passage of time of 30,000 years, it remained in as good a condition as if it had been encased in permafrost, perfectly preserving its fabric.
Her curled up position suggests that she died in her sleep. It is believed that the squirrel was hibernating during the winter in his burrow, but it became covered in snow and perished.
Yukon in Canada is rich in the remains of prehistoric beasts that have been frozen in time since the Ice Age. Just last year, miners in the Trʼondëk Hwëchʼin Traditional Territory unearthed a baby mammoth so well preserved that much of its fur and skin is still intact.
This part of the world was home to a wide variety of animals during the Ice Age, from wild horses and woolly mammoths to Beringian lions.
Thanks to the collection of frozen characters that have been recovered, we have a relatively good understanding of this wonderful and unique ecosystem.
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