A puppy which is estimated to be about 14,000 years old was found frozen with a slice of extinct rhinoceros in its stomach.
The prehistoric canine is thought to be either a dog or a wolf, with a study showing that its final meal included some sort of hairy tissue.
When it was tested by genetic analysts at the Natural History Museum in Stockholm, results confirmed that it belonged to a woolly rhino, not a cave lion as was first suspected.
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The mummified puppy is thought to have eaten one of the last animals of the species, which is thought to have died out about 14,400 years ago.
Dr. Sergey Fedorov, from Russia's North-Eastern Federal University, said: "I am very happy that DNA analysis has confirmed this as a woolly rhino.
"I noticed that the shape of the skin was rather strange. It was rectangular.
"My experience of taxidermy shows that skin could not tear like this in a natural way, if it was bitten off by an animal, for example.
"It seems likely this piece of skin with such even edges was cut artificially by an ancient human.
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"The puppy perhaps found the butchering waste of the carcass. When I saw this piece in its stomach, I was amazed.
"I thought it could be the trace of human activity."
A tiny twig was also found in the animal's stomach.
The puppy was found at Tumat, Siberia, in 2011.
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Since then a second frozen puppy was found nearby and its stomach is now to be examined closely.
Professor Love Dalen, an expert in evolutionary genetics at the Centre for Palaeogenetics - a joint venture between Stockholm University and the Swedish Museum of Natural History - has explained how scientists revealed the puppy's last meal had been rhino.
"We have a reference database and mitochondrial DNA from all mammals, so we checked the sequence data against that and the results that came back - it was an almost perfect match for woolly rhinoceros," he told CNN.
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"It's completely unheard of. I'm not aware of any frozen Ice Age carnivore where they have found pieces of tissue inside."
Professor Dalen continued: "This puppy, we know already, has been dated to roughly 14,000 years ago.
"We also know that the woolly rhinoceros (became) extinct 14,000 years ago.
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"So, potentially, this puppy has eaten one of the last remaining woolly rhinos."
After Professor Dalen speculated on another cause of death for the canine, Dr. Federov commented: "This puppy must have died very shortly after eating the rhino, because it's not very digested.
"We don't know if it was a wolf, but if it was a wolf cub, maybe it came across a baby rhino that was dead, or the (adult) wolf ate the baby rhino.
"Maybe as they were eating it, the mother rhino had her revenge."
Featured Image Credit: East2West NewsTopics: World News, History, Weird, Animals