A first intact head of a gigantic adult wolf which died about 32,000 years ago and was preserved in permafrost has been found in the Russian Arctic, scientists have said.
Covered with thick fur, the head was found by a local on the banks of the Tirekhtyakh River in Russia's remote Arctic region of Yakutia last summer.
It features a well-preserved brain, soft tissue and a set of powerful teeth and measures 41.5 centimetres (16 inches) in length.
By comparison, the torso of a modern-day wolf is between 66 and 86 centimetres long.
The head was handed to local palaeontologists who teamed up with scientists from the Jikei University School of Medicine in Tokyo to study it.
"It is the first ever such find," Albert Protopopov, head of mammoth fauna studies at the Yakutia Academy of Sciences, told AFP on Friday.
"Only cubs have been discovered before."