The lark was discovered intact after 46,000 years buried under ice

The horned lark of the Ice Age is so well preserved that hunters find the specimen that mistook it for death.

The bird is buried and frozen in permafrost near the village of Belaya Gora in northeastern Siberia. Mootk team of local fossil ivory hunters spotted the bird and handed it over to experts Nicolas Dussex and Love Dalén at the Swedish Museum of Natural History for inspection.

The 46,000-year-old specimen was identified as a horned horncup.(Photo: CNN).

The result of radiocarbon dating revealed that the bird lived about 46,000 years ago. Genetic analysis shows that it belongs to the hornbill (Eremophila alpestris) , according to research published February 21 in the journal Communications Biology.

Dalén said the bird could be the ancestor of two living subspecies of the nightingale, one in northern Russia and the other in the Mongolian steppe."This finding indicates that the climate change taking place at the end of the Ice Age eventually led to the formation of new subspecies," Dalén said.

The bird's condition is particularly good, mainly due to the freezing temperatures of the permafrost."The fact that such a small and perishable specimen is almost intact indicates that the mud is slowly depositing, or at least relatively stable, so that the bird's corpse is preserved in a very close state. the moment it died, " Dussex said.

The next step in the study was to sequence the entire bird genome. According to the team, this will reveal more information about its relationship to today's subspecies and help estimate the rate of evolution in lark.

Scientists working in the area also found the carcasses and body parts of many other animals such as wolves, mammoths and curly fur rhinos. Dussex describes such findings as invaluable because researchers can collect DNA and RNA from ancient organisms, opening up opportunities to understand the evolution of the ice age fauna. Ha and their response to climate change 50,000 - 100,000 years ago.

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