A Miner Found a 57,000-Year-Old Wolf in Canada's Ice — Everything Survived Except Its Eyes

Ancient Canada reveals one of the most extraordinary Ice Age discoveries ever made in the Yukon: a 57,000-year-old wolf pup preserved in permafrost with its fur, skin, ears, nose, whiskers and claws still intact. The discovery happened in 2016 in the Klondike goldfields, when a miner washing away frozen sediment exposed the nearly complete body of a young wolf. Named Zhur by the local First Nation, she is considered the most complete wolf mummy ever discovered. Almost everything survived — except her eyes. Researchers used X-rays, tooth development, ancient DNA and chemical analysis to reconstruct parts of her short life. They determined that Zhur was only around six to seven weeks old when she died, still young enough to depend heavily on her mother and the rest of the pack. Her preservation was possible because she appears to have been buried extremely quickly, probably when the den around her collapsed. The sudden burial protected the body from scavengers and oxygen, while the frozen Yukon ground preserved her soft tissues for tens of thousands of years. But one of the biggest surprises came from her diet. Chemical signatures in her body indicated that her mother had been feeding heavily on aquatic resources, most likely salmon. Instead of surviving entirely on mammoths, bison, horses and other Ice Age mammals, this ancient wolf family may have relied heavily on fish during the summer. Ancient DNA also connected Zhur to northern wolf populations from Siberia, Alaska and northern North America, placing her close to the ancestry of wolves that still survive today. In this video, we explore how a 57,000-year-old wolf could survive almost perfectly preserved in Canadian permafrost, what scientists discovered about her age, diet and ancestry, and why the same frozen ground that protected her for thousands of years is now beginning to disappear. #AncientCanada #CanadaHistory #IceAge #PrehistoricCanada #Yukon ⚠️ Some visuals are illustrative. Certain materials may be used under Fair Use for commentary and educational purposes.