Uyan and Dina

 

Photo by Vera Salnitskaya/Siberian Times

In the summer of 2015, the mummified remains of two lion cubs were found in the Edoma permafrost deposits in Yakutia, Russia in the Uyandina River. The two cubs were named Uyan and Dina after the river.

The cubs were well preserved they still had their soft tissue, fur, ears, and whiskers intact. Uyan was better preserved than Dina.  It was found that the two were cave lions spelaea (Goldfuss). The two lived and died Middle and Late Pleistocene period on the Eurasian continent between 370,000 and 10,000 years ago and were at least 25,000 to 55,000 years old. This species went extinct around 10,000 BC.

They were fairly young as their eyes were still not open and their baby teeth were still not coming in. It was assumed that they were 1 or 2 weeks old, but after looking in their stomach contents it was believed that they were closer to one or two days old. (some sources state that it was estimated that they were  1 or 2 months old but actually 1 to 2 weeks old). There was no milk in their stomach, but there was sediment combined with them having a crushed look to them it was believed that the den they were in collapsed and killed them. It's unknown what happened to the mother or why she did not feed them after their birth. She may have died before doing so or maybe for some other reason was unable to feed her cubs. 

Even though the two were greatly preserved we are still unable to tell what an adult version of the cubs would have been. It's possible that the adult version would not look similar to the cub version of the animal. 

SOURCES:

Mummipedia

Earth Touch News Network December 6, 2017

Smithisonian Magazine November