#dogor

Dogor is the 18,000 year old pup that was found within the Siberian Permafrost, yet is not quite a dog nor a wolf, but a puzzling connection to both. 

Dogor has been miraculously preserved within the permafrost, with its fur, teeth and even whiskers incredibly intact. Radiocarbon dating has placed the animal at 18,000 years old and researchers have suggested that the animal passed away at just 2 months old. The name Dogor means “Friend” in Yakut, a language spoken within Eastern Siberia. 

Generally, genetic analysis can quite easily discern whether a discovered canine is a wolf or dog, but in this instance, the genetics suggest that it could be an ancestral link to both. Interestingly, Dogor lived at a time in canine evolutionary history when dogs and wolves began to branch off from each other.The general scientific consensus is that dogs and wolves split from a common ancestor, however, the process of how “dogs became dogs” is certainly contested, and Dogor could be a crucial piece in that puzzle.

If Dogor is determined to be a dog, it will be the oldest ever discovered. The next oldest, the Bonn-Oberkassel puppy, was discovered in Germany and was clearly determined to be a dog of around 14,000 years old, buried with a man and a woman. 

The progression of climate change is melting the permafrost more rapidly, and discoveries like these are becoming more and more commonplace.

I just received the most wonderful pin from @pangur-and-grim ‘s store! They made an enamel pin of the Dogor Puppy, an 18,000 year old preserved frozen puppy found in 2019. It’s super cute and I’ve already put it on my jacket.

Check out their store for the puppy and other Ice Lich pins, like the foal and lion cub!

Not many people know this about me, but I have a real passion for palaeontology. My first love, like most 90s kids, was dinosaurs. But while learning as much about them as I could, that naturally led me down the path towards what came after. Seeing bones in a museum is one thing, but with creatures from the various ice ages, being locked in permafrost at the time of their death has let us see how they truly looked. To experience them as our ancestors would have, and to have evidence to support our theories.

Little Lyuba, is the best preserved mammoth specimen at more than 40k years old. Her remains show details like the ridges on her trunk, and scientists were even able to find milk in her stomach.

Spartak and Boris were two cave lion cubs 28k and 43k years in the permafrost respectively. Their fur shows that they were spotted, just like modern lion cubs, but with a much thicker coat. Their wee paw pads seem almost perfectly intact, with the universal feline toe beans we all know and love. These two cubs were some of the best examples of preservation, truly stunning specimens. 

And now? Now we have Dogor

Dogor is special for so many reasons. This little lad was estimated at being about two months old at the time of his preservation, and with his discovery, we have the opportunity to learn more about the domestication of dogs, and how they came to be padding at our sides for the last 18 millennia. The dogs that we know now are thought to have evolved from a species of wolf that is now extinct. The dire wolf. It seems that early humans looked at the biggest, baddest canine loping across the frozen landscape of the Pleistocene and went “That one. That’s the one we want to give belly rubs to.”

Even if he weren’t possibly an example of that beginning of domestication, Dogor’s remains are incredible. His little teeth are intact, and his gums look healthy and pink. His paws hint at the massive size he would have become if he had lived to adulthood.

His fur is pristine. You can easily imagine stroking his soft head as it rested on your knee around some long forgotten fire, or scratching your fingers deep into the thick fluff of his cheeks, cradling his head in your hands. You can really see why our ancestors decided that these were one of the animals we let shape our existence.