Given its age of 44,000 years, this wolf appears to be in rather decent shape.

Residents of Yakutia, eastern Russia, discovered the wolf in deep permafrost in 2021—soil that is typically frozen all year but is beginning to melt in several areas as average world temperatures rise.

Researchers from the North-Eastern Federal University in Yakutsk, Russia, are now studying the mummified bones to learn more about the animal.

The freezing conditions facilitated the mummification and proper preservation of the Pleistocene predator. Some of its organs, as well as its teeth and hair, remain intact.

“It’s shocking, actually,” Robert Losey, an anthropologist at the University of Alberta who was not involved in the study, told Business Insider.

“It’s the only complete adult Pleistocene wolf that’s ever been found so that in itself is really remarkable and completely unique,” said the biologist.

There’s a lot to learn from such a well-preserved old animal, including its genetics, habits, nutrition, and even the ancient germs and viruses it carried.

“Living bacteria can survive for thousands of years, which are kind of witnesses of those ancient times,” Artemy Goncharov, a researcher at the Institute of Experimental Medicine, said in a translated statement.

The wolf’s stomach may contain its last meal and much more.

This 44,000-year-old wolf most likely belonged to an extinct species and was bigger than current wolves, according to Losey. The animal’s genome will tell where it falls in the canine family tree.

After inspecting one of its teeth, the experts concluded that the wolf was an adult male. It presumably hunted in a flat, chilly habitat populated by mammoths, wooly rhinoceroses, extinct horses, bison, and reindeer.

Some of those creatures’ remains may still be in the wolf’s belly. Researchers collected samples from its stomach and digestive tract to gain a better understanding and are currently awaiting the results.

Losey believes researchers may also find out what ancient bacteria did in the wolf’s intestines and if it had parasites. If any of the microbes are unknown to science, they might help design future treatments, according to the researchers.

This finding is part of a bigger effort to investigate other ancient creatures, such as fossil hares, horses, and bears. The researchers have previously dissected a Pleistocene wolf skull and are preparing to dissect another wolf relic.

As the world’s permafrost melts due to rising global temperatures, more ancient species like this one emerge. Paleontologists in the Yukon, for example, are still in awe of an excellently preserved baby mammoth unearthed in 2022.

However, not everything in permafrost is innocuous.

In 2016, melting on Siberia’s Yamal Peninsula released anthrax from a frozen reindeer corpse, resulting in an outbreak that sickened 36 individuals and killed one kid.

Researchers are concerned that as a warmer planet gradually thaws, additional viruses may be slumbering in the tundra.

Last year, researcher Jean-Michel Claverie reported that he had regenerated a 48,000-year-old virus discovered in Siberian permafrost. It may still infect single-celled amoebas.

“We view these amoeba-infecting viruses as surrogates for all other possible viruses that might be in permafrost,” Claverie told CNN at the time. “We see signs of many, many different viruses. So, we know they’re there. We don’t know for certain whether they are still alive.”

Any ancient viruses or bacteria found in the Yakutia wolf’s guts might help researchers better understand the germs that live within permafrost species.