Buried and frozen in permafrost near the village of Belaya Gora in north-eastern Siberia, the bird was discovered by local fossil ivory hunters, who passed it on to a team of experts, including Nicolas Dussex and Love Dalén from the Swedish Museum of Natural History, for testing.
Radiocarbon dating revealed the bird lived around 46,000 years ago, and genetic analysis identified it as a horned lark (Eremophila alpestris), according to a paper published Friday in the journal Communications Biology. The next stage of research involves sequencing the bird's entire genome, said Dalén, which will reveal more about its relationship to present day subspecies and estimate the rate of evolutionary change in larks.
Scientists working in the area have also found carcasses and body parts from other animals such as wolves, mammoths and wooly rhinos. Dussex described such findings as "priceless" as they allow researchers to retrieve DNA and sometimes RNA, a nucleic acid present in all living cells.
Scientists can normally tell the difference relatively easy, and researchers hope that further tests on the remains will provide more insight into exactly when dogs were domesticated.
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