This Frozen Cave Lion Is So Well Preserved You Can Still See Its Whiskers

You can still make out each and every one of her whiskers even though it's been over 28,000 years since the cave lion was discovered.

Sparta is one of the best preserved Ice Age animals found. The ice covered her teeth, skin, and soft tissue. Her organs are still in working order.

Sparta is a cave lion that was found buried in the permafrost of Russia. Boris Berezhnev was looking for ancient mammoth tusks when he found her.

As wildlife hunting and trade have become more restricted, tusk hunters like Berezhnev have begun to look for ancient ivory in the icy north.

More ancient remains are being found with climate change and the extension of the tusk hunting season.

Some of the carcasses of woolly rhinos, wolves, brown bears, horses, reindeer, and bison are as old as 40,000 years old.

There were a lot of large mammals in this area. A year before Sparta was found, Berezhnev found a cave lion carcass close to the river.

Boris was slightly more damaged but it was still intact.

Boris and Sparta are thought to be about one to two months old according to researchers in Sweden. Boris is thought to be around 15,000 years old, giving or taking a few centuries.

Fossils, tracks, and ancient cave art are some of the things we know about cave lions today.

Some of the best evidence for mummies is found in the frozen soil. The frozen carcasses look similar to modern lions in many ways, just on a larger scale and with a warmer coat. Cave lions don't have one of the most famous features of African lions.

Early human artwork from the time suggests cave lions were very discreet. Some Ice Age paintings have dark coloring on the cave lion's face, but it's not clear what that means.

It's difficult to say how Boris and Sparta's coats would have developed as they got older. Researchers say that the backs of their ears are mostly covered in brown fur.

Experts think the fur would have turned a light gray if the baby had a chance to grow up.

It's important that the mane is present because it can tell us about the social structures of cave lions. Whether they live by themselves or in a group.

Scientists are debating whether cave lions were a pride like African lions or if they were their own.

There is a painting in France's Chauvet cave depicting a group of cave lions hunting bison.

When there were no other options available to the cave lions, they hunted in groups, which was more effective than solitary hunting.

Large pride would have helped to protect the kill from the competition and also to protect the young from predatory animals.

This is just a guess at the moment. We don't have enough information about the social structures of cave lions to make any conclusions.

It might change one day. Maybe we will find a cave lion that has been missing for a long time. We might be able to bring cave lions back to life.

Albert Protopopov, one of the study's authors, said that it would be easier to clone a woolly mammoth than a cave lion.

Some scientists think we should do this with woolly mammoths, but cave lions are younger. Some of the genes from modern African lions could be used to supplement the clones.

The reality of that idea is still a ways off.

The next step is to sequence both Sparta and Boris. We can figure out what to do with the data we have.

The findings were published.

There was a previous version of this article.