Scientists have discovered the intact fossil of a mummified saber-toothed kitten, frozen in the Russian tundra for around 37,000 years.

The carcass of a large bear cub, approximately 3 weeks old, was found encased in a block of ice in the Republic of Sakha, located in Russia’s Far East, along the Badyarikha River in 2020, according to a report published in Scientific reports THURSDAY.

Radiocarbon dating places the small, from Homotherium latidens species, at the end of the Pleistocene, according to the researchers. The remains contain the head and the anterior part of the body preserved up to the edge of the chest.

The mummy’s head was particularly well preserved and the mummy’s forelimbs were almost completely preserved, the newspaper said. The kitten’s pads and claws are retained on the plantar surface of the front paw, and all claws – sharp and strongly curved – are retained on the digits.

It is not clear how the cub died, the researchers said, adding that its characteristics show it was well adapted to life in a cold climate.

Discoveries of frozen mummified remains of mammals from the Late Pleistocene period are “very rare”, the researchers said.

“For the first time in the history of paleontology, the appearance of an extinct mammal that has no analogues in modern fauna has been studied,” the document says.

Homotherium Fabrinialso known as saber-toothed cats or “tigers”, are characterized by their enormous, deadly sharp canines which paleontologists believe were used to grasp and hold prey or to inflict a fatal, tearing wound to the stomach or the throat of prey.

They are estimated to have gone extinct at the end of the Pleistocene, around 12,000 years ago, and fossils have been found throughout Eurasia, Africa and the Americas.

Comparing the remains to a modern lion cub of a similar age, the researchers discovered “striking morphological peculiarities,” according to the article. Physical differences between the extinct species included an unusual snout shape – with a large mouth opening and small ear – a “very massive” neck region, elongated forelimbs and dark coat color. The mummy’s body is covered in “short, thick, soft, dark brown fur,” with hairs about 20 to 30 millimeters long, the researchers described.

Over the past decade, mummies of various animals have been discovered in the Indigirka River basin in Russia, of which the Badyarikha River is a tributary, the researchers said. “Numerous” mammoth bones have been collected in the region, according to the newspaper.

The most recent discovery of the “Badyarikha mummy” radically expands the understanding of the distribution of the genus and confirms its presence in the Late Pleistocene of Asia.