
Ice age wolf pup and caribou dug up in Canada - boulos
https://amp.theguardian.com/science/2018/sep/14/spectacular-ice-age-wolf-pup-and-caribou-dug-up-in-canada
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zerealshadowban
What a beautiful discovery!

For context, 50k years ago was the early phase of a North-African pluvial
period when the Sahara was a wet and fertile region; this lasted 20k years.
The Neanderthals disappeared 40k years ago. The first evidence of the
domestication of dogs dates to around 35k years ago in Europe and Siberia.

For the Northern Europeans here, reindeer and caribou are actually the same
species, Rangifer tarandus, but with substantial differences: caribou are
large, wild, elk-like animals which can be found in northern North America and
Greenland and have never been domesticated. In my experience the meat tastes
the same.

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diego_moita
A tip to everyone that likes natural history: the Royal Tyrrel Museum in
Drumheller, Alberta (one hour drive North East of Calgary), Canada is probably
the finest natural history museum in the world. Their collections of
Jurassic/Cretaceous dinosaurs and fossils from the Cambrian Revolution from
the Burgess Shale are mesmerizing.

[1] [http://www.tyrrellmuseum.com/](http://www.tyrrellmuseum.com/)

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52-6F-62
My grandmother always promised to take me there when I was a kid. She's passed
now, but I'd _still_ like to get out there. Sadly never made it that far east.
(I _had_ to get to the mountains instead :P)

The surrounding badlands are supposed to be quite the sight as well.

[https://abprairies.com/30-thickbox_default/majestic-
badlands...](https://abprairies.com/30-thickbox_default/majestic-badlands.jpg)

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asaph
The wolf pup looks so much like a modern dog, it could almost pass for a
golden retriever.

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simonsarris
It is often the case that domesticated animals (including humans vs their
common ancestor's descendants) look like "eternally infantile" versions of
wild creatures. I think there is a name for this phenomenon, but I cannot find
it. Does anyone know?

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wozer
You are probably thinking of "neoteny":

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoteny](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoteny)

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guchaj
They were found in 2016. How come this wasn't announced earlier? It seems like
no research about the bodies was done between 2016 and today.

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blahedo
This seems to be a common feature in "found" things in the natural
sciences—the actual discovery is years before the publication of the
associated journal article or conference proceedings. Until the peer review is
done, the scientists are understandably reticent (well, with some notable
exceptions) to crow about the discovery. It doesn't say in the article (tsk
tsk, Guardian) but I'm betting that the "news" in this is actually a
scientific publication about the find.

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elihu
In some cases, they probably don't want to talk about a recent discovery
because then there'll be a bunch of people looking for more mummified remains.
The researchers might want to have a nice long look around before attracting a
crowd of tourists.

