5 Strange Creatures Found Frozen in Ice - Part 2

some of the most incredible paleontological and archaeological finds of all time have been the frozen remains of pleistocene animals preserved for thousands of years these specimens often retain fur skin and even internal organs of ancient organisms that haven't been encountered by humans since the creatures once roamed the prehistoric landscapes of earth and as new localities that were once inaccessible to people give up their frozen treasures all sorts of remarkable new discoveries are being made so let's take a look at five of these amazing animals that have been found frozen in ice and yes this video is a long overdue sequel to the video that actually turned out to be the most popular on the channel because i thought it would be funny to do one of these again and also quite relevant given some recent developments [Music] first of all we come to possibly the most adorable of any frozen specimens that have ever been discovered in november of 2015 researchers from russia held a press conference in the city of yakutsk revealing to the media what they said was a sensational find and what a find it was two specimens of almost perfectly preserved cave lion cubs the cubs were first located along the banks of the uyandina river that runs through the republic of sakha by collectors who were apparently searching for mammoth tusks that summer there had been a rise in the water level of the river and after the water went back down there were regions along the banks where cracks had appeared it was inside one of these cracks that the collectors spotted an ice lens that contained something unsure of what they had found it was brought to scientists attention and subsequently it was realized how significant this discovery was the two cubs have been named uyan and dina after the uyandina river and were the first cave lions to ever be known from more than just bones dna analysis of the animals was able to confirm that they are indeed members of this lion species and further examinations were able to show that not only is the fur of these cats preserved but some of their internal organs are intact too the cub named uyan is in a better condition than a sibling and a ct scan of the body revealed that something is actually present in its stomach the researchers think it's possible that this substance may be its mother's milk which could potentially allow us to see what kinds of things cave lines we're feeding on however it could turn out that it's just gastric fluid and the researchers say that they have to be careful before they attempt to extract anything in case they end up damaging the specimen initially it was thought that the cubs were about 12 000 years old which is incredible in itself but later investigations have shown that the deposits the bodies were found in are in fact somewhere between 25 000 and 55 000 years old dating to a warmer time during the ice age called the karginsky interstadial additionally the researchers have been able to determine how old the cubs were at the time of their deaths as the ct scans indicate not all of their baby teeth had started to poke through their gums and their eyes seemed to have not yet fully opened so based on comparisons with the development of modern lions they were probably only between 1 and 2 weeks old when they were killed what appears to have happened for these cubs to have been so well preserved is that they were perhaps hidden away in a den by themselves as their mother went off to hunt but then a landslide killed and rapidly buried the young lions this quick burial created an oxygen-poor environment around the bodies of the cubs keeping them frozen in time for thousands of years and preserving immense detail the study of these lion cubs is not done yet though and the researchers plan to perform more ct scans take samples from the internal organs and carry out a radioisotope analysis to discover what they can about their environment and what they fed on but the discoveries of baby cave lines didn't stop there in 2017 a third individual was uncovered even better preserved than the first two nicknamed boris after the person who discovered it this specimen was unearthed from the permafrost along the banks of a different river also in the republic of sakka boris is thought to have been alive about 43 and a half thousand years ago and lived longer than uyan and dina surviving until it was probably about a month or two old all of boris's limbs are intact and it's even preserved resting its head on its paw just as modern cats do this individual appears to have died in a similar way to the other cubs as evidence of internal injuries would seem to suggest that the den it was inhabiting collapsed on the lion then in 2018 yet another cave lion cub was recovered from a location about 15 meters away from where boris was found nicknamed spartak this individual was first assumed to have been male and potentially boris's sibling however further investigations have revealed that she was actually female and born 18 000 years after boris now known as sparta it seems that she actually died of starvation indicated by the very small skinny appearance of the body as well as scans of her internal organs that showed no fat around them sadly it's been suggested that as sometimes happens with modern lines during particularly unfortunate conditions sparta was abandoned by her mother soon after she was born and was never fed any milk leading to her death studies into all of these specimens are still ongoing at the time this video is being made and hopefully all sorts of amazing discoveries about the lives of cavelines will be uncovered as we learn more from these cubs already it seems much can be determined from the preservation of patterns on the fur coats of the animals potentially helping us to better recreate the life appearance of these extinct lions and of course there's been a lot of discussion about the possibility of cloning them back from extinction though the researchers cautioned that it may still be a bit premature to be talking about that although they do say that cloning cave lines would be much more realistic than cloning mammoths as cave lines are still relatively very closely related to living lions but i don't know perhaps we should maybe instead put money into preserving the lines that are currently being driven extinct before thinking about reviving the dead anyway uyan dina boris and sparta are simply incredible finds and i'm sure remarkable new insights will be gained from their study [Music] next we come to the stunning discovery of a partial woolly rhinoceros carcass also from the sack of republic of russia in june of 2007 gold miners at a lower section of the kolima river were removing overburden of sediment dating back to the pleistocene when they uncovered the frozen mummified remains of a woolly rhino ciladonta and tequitatus that dates back to around 39 000 years ago the kolima specimen is not the best preserved woolly rhino that's ever been found as earlier discoveries of mummified remains formed in different ways and a later find of an almost complete juvenile rhino are in better conditions however this was still the first whole body of a woolly rhino found in permafrost and it's incredibly significant nonetheless the body was deformed after the animal died and large parts of the right side of the body are missing the two right legs had been torn off though they were later found separately at the same site additionally the head while preserved became detached from the body during the excavation of the specimen and the horns were also found separately still much of the left side of the animal is very much intact including skin over the body head and ear plus the intestines and stomach including its contents are still there the impressive detail preserved in this frozen specimen has therefore allowed researchers to gain a better understanding of the woolly rhino and its lifestyle since the stomach contents were retained scientists were able to determine what these beasts were eating when they were alive based on their analyses of spores and pollen found in the stomach they were able to tell that grasses and sagebrushes composed the majority of this rhinos diet in this part of siberia the discovery of the kalima rhino in addition to other specimens has also granted us a much better understanding of what these animals looked like in life it's been established that fully grown woolly rhinos were absolutely massive animals with only woolly mammoths being the bigger animals at this time in northern eurasia at between 3.4 and 3.6 meters in length around a meter and a half in height at the shoulder and the mass of 1 500 to 2 000 kilograms these were scarily big beasts woolly rhinos also appear to have had similar body proportions to the living jarvan rhino and interestingly they had relatively much shorter ears and tails than living rhino species this is a great example of an adaptation to colder climates since animals that live in such places tend to have shortened appendages as a way to conserve heat the cause of death for the kalima rhino appears to have been by drowning in a mud trap the region the rhinos were inhabiting at the time they lived would have been a good place for grazing however were also clearly very dangerous for these huge short-legged mammals since they were probably filled with thermocast features such as lakes small narrow rivers and deep gaps in the ground it seems that this particular individual was walking along the bank of a river when it lost its footing causing it to drown in mud as indicated by the position the body was found in with its head stretched upwards as it tried to breathe the right side of the body was then probably exposed at the surface for a while after death resulting in small carnivores feeding on part of the carcass then almost 40 000 years later it was found by humans and today helps to inform us about this long-lost species another incredible find the kolima woody rhino is an invaluable specimen to science next we come to a very special discovery from the ice quade dan sinchi the long ago person found in august of 1999 three hunters were out looking for wild sheep in tatsanchini alsek park in northern british columbia canada when they made a remarkable discovery this was a particularly warm summer for the area and the glacier they were walking over was melting quickly and as they hiked the men noticed several pieces of wood poking out of the ice looking closer at these pieces they could see that there were carvings and notches in them using their binoculars to search around the hunters then located a body and as soon as they'd made it out of the park they notified archaeologists in yukon of their find giving them a few of the items they had taken with them but leaving the body undisturbed the archaeologists consulted with representatives of the champagne and ejac first nations as the park is part of their traditional territory and as such they have legal control over any historical artifacts that are discovered here the representatives felt that it was important to find out as much information as they could from this body agreeing that a scientific study would be valuable but only on the condition that the body is studied for just one year after which it would be cremated this is also why there are no pictures of the body soon after the find was reported archaeologists and first nation representatives traveled by helicopter to further investigate the site of discovery confirming that this was a genuine find of an ancient human male later a larger team visited the area to examine the discovery in more detail it was found that the body was actually in two pieces the torso with a left arm and mummified hand still attached was a few meters away from the lower part of the body which still had thighs and muscles attached to it the head was also missing though the skull was later discovered in 2003 and parts of the man's hair attached to fragments of the scalp were recovered too it seems that what happened was that the body became separated after the death of this person due to the movement of the ice though it was not as bad as it could have been since the body was actually buried in a relatively stable part of the glacier all sorts of personal items were discovered around the site including a root hat woven from wooden fibers likely from sitka spruce a knife with an iron blade a copper bead a small bag made from beaver skin and a painted stick the purpose of which is currently unknown additionally there was an incredible robe found with the man that had been constructed from almost 100 small pelts from arctic ground squirrels or gophers this gopher robe is actually very similar to robes and blankets that are still used today and dna analysis of the item reveals that while it had probably originally been created in an inland location using sinew from moose there was actually evidence of repairs being done to it using sinew from humpbacks and blue whales indicating a remarkable connection to the coast as well several sticks some likely used for walking some for carrying salmon and one with a hook on one end that was probably used for setting snares were also found in the area but they were probably not associated with the man instead these likely indicate that this was a well-known route that many others had travelled sometimes leaving items behind the champagne and ejac first nations decided to name this man quade dan sinchi which i am probably horribly mispronouncing meaning long ago person found in southern tushoni so what have researchers been able to find out about the long ago person himself examinations revealed that he was only about 18 years old when he died but seems to have been in good overall health despite there being evidence of tb causing bacteria in his heart and lungs and many fish tapeworms in his intestines these likely were not the cause of his death however isotopic analysis of his bones and tissues showed that for most of his life he had been eating seafood suggesting that he lived on the coast for the majority of his life and was probably clink it however looking at his hair which preserves a shorter term record of diet it seems that in the last few months of his life he began eating more meat from terrestrial mammals meaning he had probably started to make long journeys inland potentially to a toshony or mixed clinget toshoni village many of which used to exist near the region where he was found thanks to the fact that the stomach and intestine contents of the long ago person found were preserved it was even possible to tell what had happened in the last few days of his life in the lower parts of his digestive tract were remains of a kind of shellfish in addition to the flowering parts of beech asparagus plus he was also carrying dried sockeye salmon with him all of which indicates that he had started his final journey somewhere near the coast however the fact that he died inland and that the upper part of his digestive tract contained meat from caribou or bison indicates that he had walked about a hundred kilometers inland in the three days before he died pollen located in the man's colon shows that he had been traveling in the summer likely dying in late july or august and the cause of his death would seem to most probably have been due to exposure while crossing the glacier perhaps during a storm it cannot be said for certain how kwade dan sinchi died as there's no clear evidence preserved but it probably wasn't due to falling into a crevasse since the body was outside the glacier flow zone the exact date at which this man lived is not known with complete certainty with some of the first radiocarbon dating efforts putting him at around at least 550 years old but later studies finding him to have lived somewhere between the years 1670 and 1850 this later period was a time when a lot of trading between people on the coast and in the interior was occurring so it does fit the information gathered from the body about the travels the long ago person went on incredibly there's actually a very significant modern link to quade dansenji as well a study in 2000 looked at the mitochondrial dna of over 240 volunteers from tribes and first nations from british columbia yukon and alaska discovering 17 people who have matching sequences meaning that these living people all have a direct maternal line to the long ago person found sharing a common female ancestor with him 15 of these 17 relatives identifies belonging to wolf clan while the other two identify as eagle clan since the toushoni and klinget both follow a matrilineal clan system in which children are traditionally born into their mother's clan this suggests that the long-ago person was probably a member of wolf clan 2 an incredible connection to the present indeed two sisters who were found to be relatives of this ancient man described it as extremely moving and exciting to discover that this person was related to them and for their ancient connection to the area to be shown in such a way in 2001 the remains of quade dan sinchi were cremated and the ashes buried in a can near to the location where this man lost his life hundreds of years ago other parts of his body were later uncovered including parts of the skull and these were studied at the site before being buried along with the ashes as i mentioned before there are no photos available of the long ago person found and he was never put on display like the older utsi was instead this is a wonderful example of collaboration between researchers and representatives of first nations with all sorts of fascinating information being extracted from the body while still treating this man with the respect he deserves and rightfully returning him to his family it's amazing that such a positive thing could come from this ancient tragedy of a young man losing his life alone on a glacier and it's given us all an incredible view into what life was like here hundreds of years ago next on the list is a very recent discovery of an incredible entire adult cave bear carcass preserved in an astonishing condition this specimen was discovered on bolshoi lyakovsky island one of the landmasses of the new siberian islands archipelago in northern russia and was found by a group of reindeer herders as this is such a recent find no research has been done on the carcass yet but the possibilities of what scientists could find out from such a remarkable discovery are extremely exciting to think about the bear has been described as of world importance since before the revelation of this carcass cave bears were only known from bones this specimen though apparently has all of its internal organs preserved as well as clearly retaining a great deal of fur and even having an intact nose remarkably at the same time that this adult cave bear specimen was announced it was also revealed that a preserved cave bear cub had been discovered on the russian mainland opening up even more opportunities for all kinds of new information about these prehistoric animals to be gained the adult specimen has been estimated to possibly be somewhere between 22 000 and 39 500 years old placing it within the karginsky interglacial but radiocarbon dating will be needed to get a better and more precise idea of when this animal lived the announcement of this find also explains how more remarkable discoveries of ancient animals like this will become and indeed have been becoming more frequent as the permafrost continues to melt revealing all sorts of preserved organisms that had been entirely buried before now a huge detailed research effort is planned for these newly discovered specimens with so many different angles of investigation being prepared such as analyses of the teeth to learn about this individual's life history examinations of his stomach contents to clarify questions about cave bed diet and hopefully even an analysis of the animal's dna which would greatly help researchers in reconstructing the evolution of the cave bear lineage more details of these finds are set to be announced soon and probably already have been by the time you're watching this so certainly stay tuned for news about these frozen bears the excitement of these discoveries has only just begun and i can't wait to see what is revealed finally we come to the infamous mammoth cube officially known as the jarkov mammoth this is a very unique discovery of a frozen mammoth carcass in 1997 a family of dolgans named jarkov came across the exposed tip of a tusk poking out of the tundra in the thamer peninsula of siberia after digging this tusk out of the ground they then discovered that the second tusk was present as well in the correct life position relative to where the skull would be realizing that there may be an entire mammoth body here after the jarkovs told the mammoth specialist about the find a team of researchers was sent to the site in 1998 to try and dig out more of the specimen they managed to extract the cranium of the mammoth discovering that bits of flesh skin and lots of fur had been preserved too the scientists also used a ground penetrating radar system to investigate if any more of the mammoth was present and anomalies detected under the permafrost were indeed thought to be indications that more of the body was preserved in the frozen sediment so returning again in 1999 the researchers decided to get the rest of the carcass out in a slightly unusual way they dug out a massive block of the frozen sediment surrounding the location where they thought the remaining body parts were and then on the 17th of october the whole 23 tonne block was airlifted by a russian heavy transport helicopter to an ice cave in katanga here the mammoth cube has remained since where it's undergone various studies over the years within the cave researchers have been slowly melting the frozen sediment around the carcass using hair dryers revealing more bits of fur and even preserved plants as the melting process continued though it was realized that the entire carcass is not intact within the block the remains have also been radiocarbon dated giving an age of about 20 000 to 18 000 years old and samples of the carcass have been removed and sent to researchers around the world for further study additionally examinations of the tusks which are very well preserved and huge at three metres long indicate that this was likely a fully grown male individual there doesn't seem to have been much news about the jarkov mammoth recently but presumably research into this specimen is continuing so another incredible find from the frozen permafrost of siberia the mammoth cube is a remarkably significant specimen that like all the other amazing frozen finds featured in this video has taught us and hopefully will continue to teach us about the ancient worlds that once existed on our planet so there are five more strange creatures found frozen in ice i already mentioned the first strange creatures found in ice video at the start but anyway i just wanted to say that i really wish it was not the most popular video on the channel considering it's certainly not my best at the time i was making it we'd only just started seriously creating youtube content and i was not exactly expecting over 6 million people to see it well i learned the hard way that if you're going to put a hoax decrypted in the video to make it clear from the start that is fake even though i did explain that it was a hoax but anyway and also that a lot of creationists will apparently be drawn to these sorts of videos people also seem to have an issue with the title being strange creatures and then including humans but i mean humans are pretty strange creatures if you think about it anyway i thought doing a part 2 would be kind of funny and that now would be a very good time for it given the recent discovery of the frozen cave bears plus i just really wanted to do a video about some of these findings especially quade dan sinchi as i think it's a fascinating story well i hope you enjoyed watching this video and a big thank you to our patreon supporters especially our dinosaur tier supporters jan owen corey peterson george vojtek persian boy mike pace mayer's world dhruv srivastava matthias bergshire nicole bueno amanda von nordeck just f max laura sanborn dominick bathey alex hawke and harry everett if you would like to find out more about our world its history and the wonderful life that surrounds us all please feel free to subscribe to the channel if you think we deserve it and if you would like to see more from us

Channel: Ben G Thomas

Views: 1,296,292

Rating: 4.9006348 out of 5

Keywords: Biology, Science, Paleontology, Palaeontology, Dinosaurs, Animals, Nature, Wildlife, Ben, Thomas, Prehistory, Anatomy, Fossil, Bones, News, 7Daysofscience, Days, of

Id: OJJr4EA_EiY

Length: 22min 53sec (1373 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 27 2020