Researchers pulled a fully preserved skull of an ice age horse from a mine in Yukon, Canada, new photos show.
Based on the soil around the skull and the depth of the sediment it was found, experts estimate that the horse lived around the skull, but a more accurate radiocarbon dating system could narrow this down, says a spokesman for the Yukon Paleontology Program.
Scientists have identified more than 50 ice age horse species so far, but it remains unknown which skulls belong to. The horse that now lived in Yukon during the last Ice Age (2.6 million to 11, 700 years ago) was relatively small, standing about four feet (1.2 meters) high on his shoulder, Cameron Weber quoted experts as saying in an email to Live Science.
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“The physical properties of the skull and the size and shape of the teeth can provide clues to its evolutionary history, but certain species of this horse cannot be identified without deeper genetic information,” Weber said. “If accurate species identification of this finding is desired, ancient DNA analysis is required.”
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Researchers discovered the skull in a mine in Klondike, a region in the western Yukon. With only a portion of the mandible and upper skulls first visible on the frozen ground of the mine, the team returned the following day with more tools and water to dissolve more tools and water, written in a Facebook post by a representative from the Interpretation Centre at Yukon Beringia, a museum in Whitehorse in Canada.
The miners helped researchers extract “beautiful and preserved” skulls by pointing a water hose over the skull, the representative wrote.
“What appeared was a perfect horse skull,” they wrote. “The dog presence knows that when he died he was probably a teenager because this horse was probably a male and they only partially erupted.”
It is unclear whether the researchers will date the skull and analyze its DNA to determine the species.
The horses lived in North America about 50 million to 11,000 years ago. Europeans reintroduced horses after the 15th century, and animals spread rapidly throughout the continent.
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