A mummy of a 35,000-year-old saber-toothed cat cub was discovered in Siberia four years ago. It was well-preserved in permafrost near the Badyarikha River in the northeast of Yakutia and was found by the Yakutian diggers in 2020. In the radiocarbon dating, it came to light that the cat lived during the latter part of the Pleistocene epoch, around 2.6 million to 11,700 years ago, CNN reported.
The remains -- abundant fur as well as 'mummified' flesh covering the partial corpse, its face, forelimbs and torso -- were nearly intact, the researchers stated in the journal Scientific Reports.
Although the cub's dark brown fur is short, it is very thick and measures around 0.8 to 1.2 inches (20-30 millimetres) long.
Surprisingly, the fur was also soft, said the lead author of the study, Alexey V Lopatin, full member of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow and chief researcher and director of the academy's Borissiak Paleontological Institute.
Lopatin said it was a "fantastic feeling to see with your own eyes the life appearance of a long-extinct animal... Especially when it comes to such an interesting predator as the sabre-toothed cat."
The extinct carnivores, distant relatives of the modern big cats, are highly popular for their long canines, measuring up to eight inches (20 centimetres).
Lopatin said the mummy was the maiden evidence from Asia of Homotherium latidens, the sabre-toothed cat species. However, fossilised bones have been previously discovered at various sites in the Netherlands and the Canadian Yukon.
While there are other types of frozen ice age mummies, like woolly rhinos and mammoths, the mummified cats, in comparison with them, “are extremely rare,” Lopatin said.
Before the latest discovery, there were only two known cat mummies, both being the cubs of the cave lion Panthera spelaea from the Uyandina River basin in Yakutia.
Lopatin said the Homotherium cub has been added to the list.
The next step is to extract DNA samples from the mummy to understand the species, besides the detailed examination of its skeleton, muscles and hair.
