Frozen squirrel scat preserves ancient DNA from hundreds of species

Researchers have made a significant scientific discovery by extracting and analyzing ancient DNA from preserved rodent feces, successfully identifying hundreds of species from a past ecosystem including woolly mammoths, bison, horses and big cats. This represents an advance in paleogenomics methodology that expands our understanding of ancient ecosystems.

This does not prove the full composition or behavior of ancient ecosystems, nor does it enable resurrection of extinct species; it provides genetic evidence of co-occurrence rather than detailed ecological relationships.