In 2011 and 2015 at the Syalakh site in northern Siberia, researchers found two perfectly preserved wolf sisters that were about two months old. They are referred to the Tumat Puppies near the Tumat village. They were found near the bones of wooly mammoths that showed signs of being processed by humans.

The puppies were so well preserved in ice that researchers were able to determine that they ate solid food, including local vegetation, woolly rhinoceros meat, a small bird and were still nursing from their mother.

Because the woolly rhinoceros is a large animal, even a calf, it suggests that the wolves were larger than modern wolves. Also interesting was the fact that their coat was black, something that researchers previously thought was a mutation only found in dogs, however, genetic testing showed that these puppies were not related to dogs.

According to the researchers, “The research findings, however, means that the hunt for the oldest dog — and their place of origin — is still on.”

Journal Reference:

Anne Kathrine Wiborg Runge, Jonas Niemann, Mietje Germonpré, Dorothée G. Drucker, Hervé Bocherens, Kseniia Boxleitner, Jazmín Ramos-Madrigal, Anna Linderholm, David W.G. Stanton, Alexandr Kandyba, Jonathan Brecko, Martine Van den Broeck, Robert Losey, Jannikke Räikkönen, Mikhail Sablin, Julia Stagegaard, Shyam Gopalakrishnan, Sergey Fedorov, Mikkel-Holger S. Sinding, M. Thomas P. Gilbert, Nathan Wales. Multifaceted analysis reveals diet and kinship of Late Pleistocene ‘Tumat Puppies’. Quaternary Research, 2025; 1 DOI: 10.1017/qua.2025.10

Cite This Page:

University of York. “These frozen wolf cubs ate a woolly rhino—and changed what we know about dogs.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 24 June 2025. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/06/250624044319.htm>.