Across the globe, ancient ice is telling remarkable stories. Melting glaciers and thawing permafrost are giving up their frozen treasures, revealing perfectly preserved that have been locked away for thousands of years. These incredible discoveries provide scientists with unprecedented windows into the past, showing us creatures that once roamed the Earth during ice ages and climate shifts long before humans walked the planet.
The race against time has begun. Climate change is accelerating the melting of glaciers worldwide, and researchers know they have a limited window to recover these scientific treasures before they’re lost forever. Each discovery offers tantalizing clues about ancient ecosystems, prehistoric climates, and the remarkable power of ice to preserve life in ways that seem almost impossible.
The Perfect Natural Freezer
The permafrost encasing these buried treasures acts as a protective shield around them, ensuring they stay fairly intact over many centuries. It preserves nearly anything within it, including DNA. Think of permafrost and glacial ice as nature’s ultimate time capsules. Permafrost is made of a combination of soil, rocks and sand that are bound together by ice that stays frozen all year long. Most of the remains unearthed had fur, teeth, skin, muscle tissue and organs still intact.
The preservation is so remarkable that scientists often find themselves staring at creatures that look like they died yesterday, not millennia ago. Inside those glaciers, they appear to be existing in a minimally-active state, maintaining their DNA and somehow repairing the damage incurred over time from radiation, oxidation and other harmful forces. It’s like discovering a prehistoric museum where every exhibit remains perfectly intact, waiting to tell its story.
Ancient DNA in Ice Cores
Here, we test the idea that the basal sections of deep ice cores can act as archives for ancient biomolecules and show that these molecules can be used to reconstruct significant parts of the past plant and animal life in currently ice covered areas. Scientists have discovered that ice cores don’t just preserve climate data through gas bubbles. They also contain genetic material from organisms that lived when the ice formed.
We show that DNA and amino acids from buried organisms can be recovered from the basal sections of deep ice cores, enabling reconstructions of past flora and fauna. Researchers have successfully extracted DNA from ice samples thousands of years old, revealing the genetic signatures of plants, insects, and even larger animals. We could reproducibly PCR amplify short amplicons (59-120 base-pairs, bp) of the chloroplast DNA (cpDNA) rbcL gene and trnL intron from about 50g of the interior ice melts from the Dye 3 and the John Evans Glacier silty samples. From Dye 3, we also obtained 97bp amplicons of invertebrate cytochrome oxidase subunit I (COI) mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA).
The Woolly Mammoth Cemetery
Long-extinct animals in superbly preserved time capsules are being unearthed in permafrost from across the planet – from Canada’s Yukon territory to Antarctica – enabling scientists a glimpse into the past. Woolly mammoths represent some of the most spectacular discoveries from melting ice. Many well-preserved woolly mammoths have been found, including one with grass in its mouth, one with its mother’s milk in its belly and one with faeces in its rectum.
Some of the best preserved and oldest natural mummies were found in thawing permafrost in Siberia, Alaska and Canada: like the 39,000 year old Russian mammoth calf “Dima” (discovered in 1977) or the 36.000 year old bison “Blue Babe” (discovered in 1979) from Fairbanks (Alaska) and a 40.000 year old black-footed ferret from the Yukon territory. Other exceptionally well preserved mammoth calves are “Lyuba” (2007), the 50.000 years old male “Khroma” (2009) and a new described calf found in the Siberian region of Yukaghir. These findings have revolutionized our understanding of how these massive creatures lived and died.
Cave Lions Frozen in Time
In 2017 and 2018, two mummified cave lions were discovered by two local mammoth tusk collectors in the Siberian Arctic. One cub, nicknamed Sparta, is believed to be the “best-preserved Ice Age animal ever found.” Sparta dates back about 28,000 years, while the male cub nicknamed “Boris” is approximately 43,400 years old.
The two mummified cave lion cubs were found with their fur, teeth, skin, organs and whiskers intact. The specimen is a female cave lion (Panthera spelaea) cub, which scientists named Sparta. Sparta is one the best-preserved ice age animals ever found – even her whiskers can still be seen. The preservation was so extraordinary that researchers could examine the cubs’ internal organs and study their last meals. These cave lions lived when much of Europe and Asia was covered in ice, and their discovery has provided crucial insights into predator behavior during the Ice Age.
Microscopic Time Travelers
Some of the most astounding discoveries involve creatures so small they’re invisible to the naked eye. Too small to see with the naked eye, this 24,000-year-old freshwater microorganism had been snoozing in Siberian permafrost ever since the Late Stone Age – until it was awakened from its slumber. Video released by the laboratory captured the wriggling movements of the tiny microorganism as it reemerged from its frozen state.
Priscu has found living bacteria in cores of 420,000-year-old ice and gotten them to grow in his laboratory. Other researchers report bringing far older bacteria back to life. These microscopic organisms challenge our understanding of life itself. “The takeaway is that a multicellular organism can be frozen and stored, as such for thousands of years and then return back to life – a dream of many fiction writers,” says Malavin in the statement. Scientists have successfully revived organisms that have been dormant for hundreds of thousands of years.
The Wolf Pup That Changed History
Zhùr, a mummified wolf pup who lived some 57,000 years ago, was found by a miner in Canada’s sparsely populated Yukon territory, where permafrost has preserved remarkable paleontological finds for millennia. Scientists ruled out starvation or predator attack as causes of death because she was so pristinely preserved. Instead, they concluded that a den collapse likely killed Zhùr.
Further analysis shows her diet was fish-heavy, which suggests she may have hunted with her mother along rivers as modern wolves do today. Genetic data suggests Zhùr had distant relatives in Eurasia and Alaska. However, wolves living in the Yukon today have a different genetic signature, which means Zhùr’s population was eventually wiped out and replaced by another. This single wolf pup has rewritten our understanding of ancient wolf migration patterns and hunting behaviors, showing that some wolf populations completely disappeared while others took their place.
Mummified Squirrels and Arctic Ground Dwellers
This lump of fur and claws is actually a balled-up mummified squirrel. However, X-ray scans revealed it to be a mummified squirrel that had curled up for hibernation 30,000 years ago. The well-preserved ancient animal is an Arctic ground squirrel (Urocitellus parryii), and the species still exists today and lives in the area where the mummified specimen was found, in Canada’s Yukon territory
The preservation was so complete that scientists could study the squirrel’s final moments. Researchers hypothesized that her den may have collapsed, killing the pup and helping keep the body preserved. These smaller mammals provide crucial insights into how creatures survived harsh Ice Age winters. Unlike the megafauna that went extinct, many of these smaller species like Arctic ground squirrels adapted so successfully that their descendants still live in the same regions today.
Recent Alpine Discoveries
The mummified chamois, a young female, lies exposed on the Gepatschferner, Austria’s second largest glacier, near the Italian border and the summit of the Weißseespitze. The chamois is estimated to be about 500 years old. “We believe that she is about 500 years old,” says Fischer, an Alpine glaciologist from the Institute for Interdisciplinary Mountain Research of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Innsbruck.
Glaciers all over the Alps are melting at an unprecedented rate this summer. Last winter’s scant snows melted early, leaving the ice unprotected against the heat waves that have lately swept across the continent. By the end of the season, Fischer says, as much as seven meters of ice, or 23 feet, will have melted off the surface of glaciers in the eastern Alps – far more than in any previous year. This chamois discovery represents a newer type of mummified animal – one preserved in more recent glacial conditions rather than ancient permafrost.
Ancient Penguins and Polar Preservation
In 2016, in Cape Irizar – a rocky headland in Antarctica – scientists unearthed all the telltale signs of a freshly abandoned Adélie penguin colony – including dead penguins, bones and guano-stained pebbles. But researchers were puzzled, because Adélies (Pygoscelis adeliae) hadn’t been seen in the area for hundreds of years. It turns out that a period of melting on the frozen continent revealed the mummified remains, along with bones and eggshells, and are thought to be between 800 and 5,000 years old.
These Antarctic discoveries show how ice preservation works in polar environments where temperatures remain consistently below freezing. The penguin colony appeared as if it had been abandoned recently, but carbon dating revealed the true age of these remarkable finds. The preservation was so complete that scientists could study the penguins’ diet and behavior patterns from thousands of years ago.
Climate Change Accelerating Discoveries
Aided by the melting permafrost from a trend of rising temperatures, long-extinct creatures are being unearthed and casting new light on unknown, prehistoric eras. From a squirming microorganism awakened from its deep multi-millennial slumber to a pair of mummified lion cubs, fascinating discoveries of some of the most immaculately, remarkably preserved prehistoric creatures have been unearthed from permafrost over the past many decades, providing scientists with a unique window into life as it existed hundreds of thousands of years ago.
Present since the last ice age, most of the world’s glaciers are now shrinking or disappearing altogether as the climate gets warmer. Glaciers have shown an overall shrinking trend for the past 37 years. Ice loss in mountain glaciers is accelerating: each of the last three complete decades has brought bigger declines than the decade before. This rapid melting creates both opportunities and urgency for scientists racing to recover specimens before they’re lost forever.
The Race Against Time
Schwikowski, an environmental chemist at the Paul Scherrer Institut near Zurich, is the scientific lead for the Ice Memory Foundation, a collaborative group that aims to preserve glacial ice records before climate change wrecks them. Their goal is to get cores from 20 glaciers around the world in 20 years, and, starting in 2025, lock them away for long-term storage in an ice cave in the Antarctic – a natural freezer that will hold them at close to minus 60 degrees F (minus 50 degrees C).
When you are standing on a glacier that’s literally melting under your feet, says Schwikowski, “you really feel the urgency.” Scientists know they’re in a race against time. Sad as this dramatic loss is, there’s also a thrilling sense of anticipation: What other well-preserved relics of the past might emerge from the ice? Ötzi is five thousand years old, ten times older than Fischer’s chamois – but thousands of years’ worth of ice are melting in the Alps this summer. Every melting glacier potentially contains scientific treasures that could revolutionize our understanding of the past.
Conclusion
The discovery of in melting glaciers represents one of the most extraordinary scientific frontiers of our time. These frozen time capsules are giving us unprecedented insights into ancient ecosystems, prehistoric climates, and the remarkable resilience of life itself. From microscopic organisms that can be revived after hundreds of thousands of years to perfectly preserved mammoths with their last meals still in their stomachs, each discovery rewrites what we thought we knew about the past.
Yet these discoveries come with a bittersweet realization. The same climate change that’s revealing these ancient treasures is also destroying the very conditions that preserved them in the first place. Scientists are racing against melting ice, knowing that countless other specimens may be lost forever before they can be studied. What incredible secrets might still be locked in the world’s remaining ice, waiting for their moment to emerge from their frozen slumber? What do you think about it? Tell us in the comments.
Jan loves Wildlife and Animals and is one of the founders of Animals Around The Globe. He holds an MSc in Finance & Economics and is a passionate PADI Open Water Diver. His favorite animals are Mountain Gorillas, Tigers, and Great White Sharks. He lived in South Africa, Germany, the USA, Ireland, Italy, China, and Australia. Before AATG, Jan worked for Google, Axel Springer, BMW and others.
