The severed head of a wolf that died about 40,000 years ago has been found in Siberia, and because of the freezing conditions, the remains are so well preserved that the fur, teeth, brain and facial tissue are largely intact.

Pavel Yefimov, a local resident, discovered the head last summer on the banks of the Tirekhtyakh river close to the Arctic Circle in the region of Yakutia, according to the Siberian Times.

The head was handed to the Science Academy of Yakutia. Researchers there sent samples and measurement data abroad and with help from colleagues in Japan and Sweden determined its age as approximately 40,000 years, the news outlet said.

Footage provided to Reuters TV by the academy shows the head of an animal, visibly bigger than that of a modern wolf, covered with fur and with teeth visible. Its eyes are missing.

The head is to undergo plastination, a technique of replacing water and fat with plastics that prevents decay and preserves tissue for scientific purposes.

“This is a fixation by chemical means, so that the fur would not come off and so that we could keep it unfrozen,” Valery Plotnikov, one of academy scientists, said in the footage.