An incredibly well-preserved 46,000-year-old bird has been discovered in Siberia, according to the scientific journal Communications Biology, reported by the American channel CNN. The animal, a horned lark, dates from the last ice age (geological period dated between 110,000 and 10,000 years before today).
The bird was first discovered by local hunters in search of fossil ivory. The animal was buried in the ice of permafrost (the ground permanently frozen), near the village of Belaya Gora located in the northeast of Siberia.
An ice age bird
After its discovery, the hunters entrusted the frozen animal to a team of scientists from the Swedish Natural History Museum, including Nicolas Dussex and Love Dalén. And the radiocarbon dating carried out by the researchers revealed that the bird had lived 46,000 years ago. Genetic tests have revealed that it was a horned lark: a species of bird which could be the ancestor of two subspecies still living today in the north of Russia and in the steppes. Mongolian.
“This discovery implies that climate change that took place at the end of the last ice age led to the formation of new animal” subspecies, “Nicolas Dussex told CNN. He specifies that he and his colleagues are now considering sequencing the entire genome of the bird in order to learn more about its possible links with current lark species.
“The fact that such a small and fragile specimen is almost intact suggests that the mud was deposited gradually, or that the soil was stable enough for the carcass of the bird to have been kept in a state very close to its own. at the time of death, “explains the researcher.
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