Well-preserved Ice Age woolly rhino found in Siberia

In recent years, mammoths, woolly rhinos, ice age foals and cave lion babies have been discovered as the permafrost is melting increasingly in large parts of Siberia due to global warming.

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A well-preserved Ice Age woolly rhinoceros with many internal organs still intact was recovered from the permafrost in the far north of Russia.

Russian media reported Wednesday that the carcass was exposed when the permafrost melted in Yakutia in August. Scientists are waiting for ice roads to become passable in the Arctic to be shipped to a laboratory for study next month.

It is one of the best preserved specimens of the Ice Age animal found so far. The carcass still has most of its soft tissues intact, including part of the intestine, thick hair, and a lump of fat. The horn was found next to it.

In recent years, mammoths, woolly rhinos, ice age foals and cave lion babies have been discovered as the permafrost is melting increasingly in large parts of Siberia due to global warming.

This undated flyer photo from Reuters dated December 30, 2020 shows a carcass of a juvenile woolly rhinoceros found in permafrost on the banks of the Tirekhtyakh River in the Yakutia region of eastern Siberia, Russia, in August 2020.
DEPARTMENT FOR MAMM’S STUDY on REUTERS

Yakutia 24 TV quoted Valery Plotnikov, a paleontologist with the regional division of the Russian Academy of Sciences, as saying the woolly rhinoceros was likely 3 or 4 years old when it died. Plotnikov said the young rhinoceros likely drowned.

Scientists dated the carcass to be 20,000 to 50,000 years old. More accurate dating will be available once it is shipped to a laboratory for radiocarbon studies.

The carcass was found on the banks of the Tirekhtyakh River in Abyisk District, near the area where another young woolly rhinoceros was recovered in 2014. The researchers dated this specimen, which they named Sasha, to 34,000 years ago.

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