An almost completely preserved corpse of one of the most terrifying animals ever was found PHOTO/VIDEO

Despite the fact that more than 31,000 years have passed since the death of this animal, the baby homotherium, or saber-toothed big cat, has remained in almost perfect condition in the frozen ground.

This small saber-toothed cat was discovered in 2020. The mummy includes the animal's entire head and one forelimb, shoulders and thorax and one of the hind legs.

The team focused their research on the mummy's head and dental features to determine the species of saber-toothed cat and better understand the species' geographic distribution and unique morphology.

"The studied frozen mummified cub confirms modern life-like reconstructions, made from the remains of adult bones," said Alexei Lopatin, a paleontologist at the Borisyak Paleological Institute in Russia and lead author of the paper.

"It also complements the external characteristics - the color of the fur, the size of the muzzle, the size of the ears, the shape of the foot pads, etc. These cannot be seen in the skeletal remains."

Radiocarbon dating of the specimen gave an age of approximately 31,800 years, making it several thousand years older than the second cub found in 2018. In other words, when people drew the oldest cave paintings in Lascaux, this cub had already been dead for almost 15,000 years.

The research team used a three-week-old lion cub carcass for comparative analysis of the older cat, and CT scanned the mummy to reveal its skeletal structure non-invasively. The researchers identified the saber-toothed cat as a specimen of the species Homotherium latidens.

The Homotherium, also known as the saber-toothed cat, was a saber-toothed predator built for long-distance running. Homotherium had shorter incisors than other sabertooths, such as Smilodon, and was also leaner - even leaner than modern lions (Panthera leo).

The species identification of the cubs confirms that Homotherium was present in Asia in the late Pleistocene, the researchers wrote in the study. Thus, for the first time in the history of paleontological research, the external appearance of an extinct mammal that has no analogues in the modern fauna was directly studied," the team wrote.

The mummy's skull was slightly deformed, but its well-preserved right side allowed the team to reconstruct its shape. They noticed that the neck of the saber cat is more than twice as thick as the neck of the lion. The hatchling is an indication of how adult homotheriums - distinguished by their short bodies and relatively long legs - take shape.

In addition to comparative analysis and the superlative age of the specimen, the saber-toothed mummy can provide even more insight into the ancient past.

"Muscles, bones and skin are well preserved in the permafrost ice," Lopatin said, as reported by gizmodo.com.

DNA can be extracted, and this is one of the next stages of our research. Extracting genetic information from specimens preserved in permafrost is important, and for good reason. Unique preservation conditions mean that genetic material can remain intact for tens of thousands of years. In 2022, a team of researchers found a wonderfully preserved baby woolly mammoth in a Yukon gold mine, and earlier this year the team was able to decipher some of the mammoth's genomic architecture using chromosomes preserved in permafrost for an incredible 52,000 years - a time when Neanderthals were still there. Some new unique mummified specimens have already been found in Yakutia, where cubs of cave lions and saber-toothed cats have been found.