This is a list of Ice Age species preserved as permafrost mummies . It includes all known species that have had their tissues partially preserved within the permafrost layer of the Arctic and Subarctic . Most went extinct during the Late Pleistocene extinctions while some are still extant today. They have been listed to the most specific known taxonomic rank.
Yuka – a woolly mammoth mummy on display in Moscow
Permafrost mummies provide crucial insights into the physiology and life histories of Pleistocene organisms, due to how well the preservation process keeps the specimens from decomposing. The constant presence of permafrost is able to preserve the soft tissues of organisms through a process similar to freeze-drying.[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]
Some of these specimens are on display at the Kingdom of the Permafrost museum near Yakutsk .[7]
(E) - denote an extinct species
Harington, C. R. (2007-01-01), "Vertebrate Records | Late Pleistocene Mummified Mammals" , in Elias, Scott A. (ed.), Encyclopedia of Quaternary Science , Oxford: Elsevier, pp. 3197–3202, doi :10.1016/b0-44-452747-8/00267-2 , ISBN 978-0-444-52747-9 , retrieved 2024-02-29 Kjær, Kurt H.; Winther Pedersen, Mikkel; De Sanctis, Bianca; De Cahsan, Binia; Korneliussen, Thorfinn S.; Michelsen, Christian S.; Sand, Karina K.; Jelavić, Stanislav; Ruter, Anthony H.; Schmidt, Astrid M. A.; Kjeldsen, Kristian K.; Tesakov, Alexey S.; Snowball, Ian; Gosse, John C.; Alsos, Inger G. (2022). "A 2-million-year-old ecosystem in Greenland uncovered by environmental DNA" . Nature . 612 (7939): 283–291. Bibcode :2022Natur.612..283K . doi :10.1038/s41586-022-05453-y . ISSN 1476-4687 . PMC 9729109 PMID 36477129 . Orlando, Ludovic; Ginolhac, Aurélien; Zhang, Guojie; Froese, Duane; Albrechtsen, Anders; Stiller, Mathias; Schubert, Mikkel; Cappellini, Enrico; Petersen, Bent; Moltke, Ida; Johnson, Philip L. F.; Fumagalli, Matteo; Vilstrup, Julia T.; Raghavan, Maanasa; Korneliussen, Thorfinn (2013). "Recalibrating Equus evolution using the genome sequence of an early Middle Pleistocene horse" . Nature . 499 (7456): 74–78. Bibcode :2013Natur.499...74O . doi :10.1038/nature12323 . ISSN 1476-4687 . PMID 23803765 . Yamagata, Kazuo; Nagai, Kouhei; Miyamoto, Hiroshi; Anzai, Masayuki; Kato, Hiromi; Miyamoto, Kei; Kurosaka, Satoshi; Azuma, Rika; Kolodeznikov, Igor I.; Protopopov, Albert V.; Plotnikov, Valerii V.; Kobayashi, Hisato; Kawahara-Miki, Ryouka; Kono, Tomohiro; Uchida, Masao (2019-03-11). "Signs of biological activities of 28,000-year-old mammoth nuclei in mouse oocytes visualized by live-cell imaging" . Scientific Reports . 9 (1): 4050. Bibcode :2019NatSR...9.4050Y . doi :10.1038/s41598-019-40546-1 . ISSN 2045-2322 . PMC 6411884 PMID 30858410 . Kirillova, Irina V.; Zanina, Oksana G.; Chernova, Olga F.; Lapteva, Elena G.; Trofimova, Svetlana S.; Lebedev, Vladimir S.; Tiunov, Alexei V.; Soares, Andre E. R.; Shidlovskiy, Fedor K.; Shapiro, Beth (September 2015). "An ancient bison from the mouth of the Rauchua River (Chukotka, Russia)" . Quaternary Research . 84 (2): 232–245. Bibcode :2015QuRes..84..232K . doi :10.1016/j.yqres.2015.06.003 . ISSN 0033-5894 . Meachen, Julie; Wooller, Matthew J.; Barst, Benjamin D.; Funck, Juliette; Crann, Carley; Heath, Jess; Cassatt-Johnstone, Molly; Shapiro, Beth; Hall, Elizabeth; Hewitson, Susan; Zazula, Grant (2020). "A mummified Pleistocene gray wolf pup" . Current Biology . 30 (24): R1467–R1468. Bibcode :2020CBio...30R1467M . doi :10.1016/j.cub.2020.11.011 ISSN 0960-9822 . PMID 33352124 . Boeskorov, Gennady G.; Potapova, Olga R.; Protopopov, Albert V.; Plotnikov, Valery V.; Maschenko, Eugeny N.; Shchelchkova, Marina V.; Petrova, Ekaterina A.; Kowalczyk, Rafal; van der Plicht, Johannes; Tikhonov, Alexey N. (2018-07-01). "A study of a frozen mummy of a wild horse from the Holocene of Yakutia, East Siberia, Russia" . Mammal Research . 63 (3): 307–314. doi :10.1007/s13364-018-0362-4 . ISSN 2199-241X . Boeskorov, Gennady G.; Lazarev, Peter A.; Sher, Andrei V.; Davydov, Sergei P.; Bakulina, Nadezhda T.; Shchelchkova, Marina V.; Binladen, Jonas; Willerslev, Eske; Buigues, Bernard; Tikhonov, Alexey N. (2011-08-01). "Woolly rhino discovery in the lower Kolyma River" . Quaternary Science Reviews . Beringia and Beyond: Papers Celebrating the Scientific Career of Andrei Vladimirovich Sher, 1939–2008. 30 (17): 2262–2272. Bibcode :2011QSRv...30.2262B . doi :10.1016/j.quascirev.2011.02.010 . ISSN 0277-3791 . Dussex, Nicolas; Stanton, David W. G.; Sigeman, Hanna; Ericson, Per G. P.; Gill, Jacquelyn; Fisher, Daniel C.; Protopopov, Albert V.; Herridge, Victoria L.; Plotnikov, Valery; Hansson, Bengt; Dalén, Love (2020-02-21). "Biomolecular analyses reveal the age, sex and species identity of a near-intact Pleistocene bird carcass" . Communications Biology . 3 (1): 84. doi :10.1038/s42003-020-0806-7 . ISSN 2399-3642 . PMC 7035339 PMID 32081985 . 
