Found frozen deep in the Siberian Arctic, the cave lion cub looks like she's asleep and one touch might awaken her.The cub's golden fur is matted with mud but otherwise undamaged. Her teeth, skin, soft tissue and organs are mummified but all intact. Some 28,000 years since she last closed her eyes, her claws are still sharp enough to prick the finger of one of the scientists who are studying this remarkable - and unprecedented - permafrost-preserved specimen.
The Siberian Simba, nicknamed Sparta, was found in 2017 and 2018 by mammoth tusk hunters on the banks of the Semyuelyakh River in Russia's Far East.
"Sparta is probably the best preserved Ice Age animal ever found, and is more or less undamaged apart from the fur being a bit ruffled. She even had the whiskers preserved," said Love Dalen, a professor of evolutionary genetics at the Centre for Palaeogenetics in Stockholm, Sweden, and an author of a new study on the cubs.
The cub was just 1 or 2 months old when it perished, the study said. It's not clear how they died, but Dalen and the research team - which includes Russian and Japanese scientists -- said there were no signs of them being killed by a predator.
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