The mummified remains of a sabre-toothed cat cub has been recovered in an exceptional state of preservation from the permafrost of Siberia. Radiocarbon dating found the cub lived and died 35,500 to 37,000 years ago. Paleontologist Alexey Lopatin found the cub while looking for mammoth tusks on the Badyarikha River in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) in 2020. The mummy consists of the head and top half of the body of a felid cub, complete with thick brown fur, toe pads, claws, muscles, skin, even whiskers preserved in the permafrost. The bottom half of the cub was not preserved, except for some incomplete pelvic bones articulated with the femur and shin bones found encased in the ice. The remains were CT scanned for detailed analysis of the bones. The scans were compared to ones from the body of three-week-old modern lion cub, with particular focus on the crania and teeth to determine its species. Measurements of the bones and examination of other anatomical features (eg, eye shape, nose and nostril proportion, fur lengths) found that the cub belonged to the species Homotherium latidens. The eruption stage of the incisors indicate the cub was also just a three-week-old kitten when he died in the frigid cold of the Arctic Circle. This is the first Homotherium mummy ever discovered. It is only the second example of H. latidens from Late Pleistocene Eurasia, and the first one found in Asia. The study of the mummy of the Homotherium latidens cub made it possible for the first time to observe its fur, the shape of its muzzle, the shape and position of the auricle, the morphology of the mouth opening and nasal planum. The shape of the front paw of this predator was studied, and the features of the distribution of its muscle mass were established, also for the first time. New information about the juvenile stages of development of the skull and limbs makes it possible to establish the peculiarities of the early postnatal ontogenesis of Homotherium. Also, the discovery of H. latidens mummy in Yakutia radically expands the understanding of distribution of the genus and confirms its presence in the Late Pleistocene of Asia. 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 has been studied directly. Researchers will continue to study the sabre-toothed kitten. They will attempt to extract DNA from the remains, and the cub having been frozen for 35,000 years in ice bodes well for successful extraction. A follow-up paper will go into further detail on its anatomical features.

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