DNA analysis of a 30,000-year-old Urocitellus glacialis from northeastern Siberia reveals phylogenetic relationships between ancient and present-day arctic ground squirrels

• Published in: Scientific Reports
• Main Authors: Faerman, Marina, Bar-Gal, Gila Kahila, Boaretto, Elisabetta, Boeskorov, Gennady G., Dokuchaev, Nikolai E., Ermakov, Oleg A., Golenishchev, Fedor N., Gubin, Stanislav V., Mintz, Eugenia, Simonov, Evgeniy, Surin, Vadim L., Titov, Sergei V., Zanina, Oksana G., Formozov, Nikolai A.
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: Nature Publishing Group 2017
• Subjects: Article; Arctic; El’ga; Kamchatka Peninsula; Yar; Kamchatka; permafrost; Urocitellus parryii; Yakutia; Beringia; Siberia
• Online Access: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5311991/; http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28205612; https://doi.org/10.1038/srep42639

In contrast to the abundant fossil record of arctic ground squirrels, Urocitellus parryii, from eastern Beringia, only a limited number of fossils is known from its western part. In 1946, unnamed GULAG prisoners discovered a nest with three mummified carcasses of arctic ground squirrels in the perma...