The melting of the Siberian permafrost has revealed an incredibly well-preserved woolly rhinoceros, with many of its internal organs still largely intact.
According to the Siberian Times newspaper, the Ice Age creature was revealed when permafrost thawed in the Yakutia region in the far north of Russia last August. The find is not trivial, as it is believed to be the best preserved woolly rhinoceros that has been found to date.
A young woolly rhino
The woolly rhinoceros was a young specimen, possibly three or four years old, when it died sometime between 20,000 and 50,000 years ago.
Because the remains have been hidden and frozen for thousands of years, the corpse is remarkably preserved and still includes some of its hazel-colored hair, soft tissue, intestines, teeth, lumps of fat, and even its striking and striking horn. The horn was next to the body, a rarity for such discoveries.
“The young rhinoceros was living apart from its mother when it died, most likely by drowning. The animal’s [sex] is still unknown. We are waiting for radiocarbon analyzes to define when it lived; the most likely date range is between 20,000 and 50,000 years. “Valery Plotnikov of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), who made the first description of the great discovery, told the Siberian Times.
Scientists hope that the ice roads in the Arctic region will be passable to take the animal to a laboratory for study throughout this month of January 2021.
The carcass of the small woolly rhino was found on the bank of the Tirekhtyakh River in the Abyisk district, near the area where another young woolly rhino was recovered in 2014. Researchers dated that specimen, which they named Sasha, 34,000 years ago. Sasha helped prove that woolly rhinos were covered in thick hair, something previously only discernible from cave paintings. We now have new evidence that woolly rhinos fully adapted to cold weather at a young age.
Climate change
It is no coincidence that in recent times we have witnessed the revelation of mammoths, cave lion cubs or woolly rhinos. Even a 42,000-year-old foal, known as the Lena horse, was found in the permafrost of the Batagaika crater in Yakutia, Siberia . These findings are due to the fact that permafrost is melting faster and faster in many areas of Siberia – especially in the summer months – due to global warming, exposing these creatures from many thousands of years ago. Without going any further, during the month of August 2020 Western Siberia suffered a heat wave that broke records. Soils have become much more unstable, and as permafrost releases CO2 and methane, global warming is also accelerating – a circumstance that could forever transform Siberia’s arctic landscape.
