(CNN) A 40,000-year-old severed wolf's head, preserved by permafrost complete with teeth and fur, has been discovered in eastern Siberia.

Locals looking for mammoth ivory found the remains on the banks of the Tirekhtyakh River in Yakutia, before bringing it to the mammoth studies department at the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Sakha.

Albert Protopopov, director of the department, told CNN that while frozen wolf cubs had been unearthed in the past, the discovery of an adult wolf's head was novel.

"This is the first time the head of an ancient wolf has been found whose soft tissue has been preserved after 40,000 years, a grown wolf," he said.

The wolf lived during the Pleistocene era, or the Ice Age.

Scientists are now building a digital model of the brain and the skull's interior for further study, Protopopov said. A team in Stockholm is analyzing the wolf's DNA.

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