Ancient squirrel poop from Arctic permafrost contains DNA from mammoths, bison, horses and big cats
https://www.livescience.com/animals/ancient-squirrel-poop-from-arctic-permafrost-contains-dna-from-mammoths-bison-horses-and-big-cats
Ancient squirrel poop from Arctic permafrost contains DNA from mammoths, bison, horses and big cats
https://www.livescience.com/animals/ancient-squirrel-poop-from-arctic-permafrost-contains-dna-from-mammoths-bison-horses-and-big-cats
6 Comments
**It’s wild how much data we can pull from coprolites. A tiny ancient squirrel essentially functioned as a living, walking environmental sensor for its entire ecosystem.The preservation power of permafrost never ceases to amaze me. To get viable, multi-species DNA reads out of ancient droppings like this is incredible sequencing work**
I didn’t expected that ancient squirrels were the apex predator of their time
There’s a Monty Python skit in here somewhere.
Scrat has been busy.
Rodents today love gnawing on bones for the calcium. I wonder if bone chewing was the reason for these ancient DNA findings too?
Go get’em squirrel. Bringing down entire mastadons. Impressive.