Ancient squirrel poop preserves DNA for 700,000 years
Frozen waste found in the Yukon permafrost acts as a genetic time capsule, protecting delicate biological information better than lake sediments or fossils.
In the gold-rich Klondike region of the Yukon, miners and paleontologists have uncovered hairy, frozen spheres that were once a mystery. These objects are actually coprolites, the fossilized feces of ancient ground squirrels. Because they were buried in permafrost, the DNA inside has remained remarkably intact for up to 700,000 years, providing a high-resolution map of an extinct world.
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