Free Republic

As our planet's permafrosts continue to melt in record-breaking heat, we can expect to find astonishing things from the ancient past. Like this huge wolf head, preserved since the last ice age and unearthed in incredible condition in Siberia in 2018, an estimated 40,000 years since being entombed in frozen wilderness. The giant head, discovered by a local man in 2018 along the shores of the Tirekhtyakh River in the Russian Republic of Sakha (aka Yakutia), measures a whole 40 centimetres in length (about 16 inches), making it unlike any existing wolf specimen scientists have studied from so long ago....

A prehistoric lion cub has been found in permafrost on the bank of Tirekhtykh River of the Abyisky district of Yakutia by local resident Boris Berezhnov. The young beast's head was resting on a paw in frozen ground for up to 50,000 years, as shown in these amazing first pictures. The preservation is so good that it raises hopes of cloning the species back to life, he said. The discovery is seen as better preserved than two tiny cave lion cubs found in the same Siberian region in 2015.

Claims that a panther-like animal may be roaming the Black Mountains of Wales have been confirmed by a post mortem examination which showed that a dog was killed and partly eaten by a larger predator. DNA samples will be taken from hairs found in the whippet's mouth to try to determine what beast killed the seven-year-old dog at a remote smallholding near Llangadog a week ago. The tests, arranged by the Welsh Assembly's wildlife advisory unit, are expected to take at least two weeks. Paw prints in the snow - almost certainly made by the cat - have also been...