Local outlets reported that the remains of the roughly one-year-old cub were found in Russia's far northeastern Yukatia region this past September (2017) by a local resident. It's not the first time the frozen Siberian region has yielded prehistoric finds.
The area's permafrost, or permanently frozen ground, is capable of preserving animals like cave lions and woolly mammoths, even tens of thousands of years after their species went extinct.
The new cub comes just two years after two similarly frozen and intact lion cubs, named Uyan and Dina, were found. Dated to around 12,000 years old, Uyan and Dina were the first prehistoric cave lions found in such a well-preserved state.
Unlike the 2015 cubs, who died at around two to three weeks of age (before their teeth came in), the new cub appears to have died when it was roughly a year old. Because it was old enough to grow teeth, scientists may be able to get a fairly accurate estimate of the cub's remains.
The new cub's good condition has refueled hopes that the remains could be used for cloning. In 2016, Korean and Russian scientists told Interfax they would attempt to clone a cave lion cub. What becomes of this new cub remains to be seen, but bringing extinct animals back to life, or de-extinction, has been a pursuit rife with debate among scientific communities.
Thanks to ongoing advances in DNA recovery, replication and manipulation technology, as well as the ability of scientists to recover soft tissue from fossilized animals, it may soon be possible to breed Tasmanian Tigers, Woolly Mammoths and Dodo Birds back into existence.
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ICE RIFT & ICE RIFT – SALVAGE
Something ancient dwells beneath the ice…
Humans have always looked to the stars for signs of Extraterrestrials.
They have been looking in the wrong place.
They are already here. Entombed beneath Antarctic ice for thousands of years.
The ice is melting and soon they will be free.
HORROR ISLAND
(Extract)
PREFACE
Extraterrestrial
The meteor approached Earth almost lazily at 25,000 miles per hour and entered its atmosphere at an angle of 42 degrees, which proved optimal for its size to survive the extreme heat peeling away its mass. The friction rapidly decreased its cosmic velocity and a few miles above the Earth’s surface, it reached its retardation point. Just as the many thousands that fell to the Earth each year, the rock succumbed to gravity and arced to the ground at 200 miles per hour. Though the ocean below spread out for miles in all directions, the meteorite headed for a small patch of green and brown amongst the blue. It struck the side of a hill and threw up clods of earth and vegetation as it gouged a small trench down the slope until plopping into the stream at the bottom with a hiss of steam. The rapid change in temperature cracked the rock as it sunk to the streambed. For many years it laid dormant while the organism within fed on the nutrients the current washed over it.
Attracted by the tasty-looking, pale worm-like tendrils waving enticingly in the water, the trout approached the algae-covered rock to which they were attached. A swish of its tail darted it forward with its mouth open to receive the food. Though the fish sensed danger when the tendrils twisted together into a single form and stretched towards it, it had no time to react. With lightning speed, the tendril worm released its attachment on the alien rock that had been its home for thousands of years and dived down its victim’s throat. The fish struggled to eject the thing that squirmed inside it but failed and fell still while the alien parasite adapted to its new host. A few moments later, no longer in control of its own body, the fish swished its tail and swam away.
The male fox glanced disinterestedly at the bright moon reflected in the stream when it lowered its mouth and lapped up the cool liquid. When something leapt from the water and flopped on the grass beside it, it sprung back into a defensive stance and stared at the plump, wriggling fish. Pleased by the unexpected easy meal that would cut short its hunt, the fox pounced on the fish before it wriggled back into the water and ended its thrashing with one bite. With the meal clamped in its jaws, it headed into the undergrowth. After only a few steps, the fox convulsed, fell to the ground and lay still. A few moments later, it awoke, picked up the fish that now had a rip in its side, and headed for its den where the vixen and her newborn cubs anticipated its return.
The vixen stopped nuzzling her cubs, glanced along the dirt tunnel at the sounds of something entering her den and sniffed the air. Though at first reassured by the familiar scent of her mate, her keen sense of smell detected something else she couldn’t identify. She placed herself between her cubs and whatever approached and waited for it to appear.
When the male fox rounded the bend in the passage and saw the vixen waiting with her claws extended and jaws formed into a vicious snarl, its host sensed the oncoming fight and the likely damage to the bodies it needed to make use of.
As the vixen prepared to battle her mate that was somehow different and that she sensed was a danger to her and her cubs, she crouched ready to spring. She watched her mate open his mouth wide, and before the fish he carried hit the ground, something long and pale shot from his mouth, slithered around her and squeezed. Her frantic struggles to be free from the constricting menace so she could protect her offspring were in vain, and she flopped to the ground.
The vixen’s mate settled to the ground and observed the transformation that took a few minutes and ended with her barely resembling her original form. The part of him that was still vaguely conscious of what was happening, looked on in horror as the thing drew breath and roamed its evil eyes around the small den. The cubs would be next, and he was powerless to prevent it.
CHAPTER 1
Midnight Misery
The four passengers in the small motorboat emerged from the swirling mist cloaking the entrance to the large harbor and looked towards shore as the pilot idled down the engine and let momentum drift them towards the rickety jetty stretching out from the island. Though the trees and bushes had reclaimed much of the shoreline, hints and shapes of infrastructure were glimpsed amongst the gloom-shrouded overgrowth light from the full moon failed to penetrate.