The discovery of an important woolly rhinoceros fossil in Tibet, published today in the magazineScience, provides important clues about how the great colossi of the Ice Age evolved and managed to adapt to the cold.
A team of geologists and paleontologists led by Wang Xiaoming of the Los Angeles Museum of Natural History (NHM) and Li Qiang of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences discovered in 2007 a complete skull and lower jaw ofa new species of woolly rhinoceros ( Coelodonta thibetana ) in the Himalayas, in the southwest of the Tibetan plateau.
The new rhinoceros fossil is 3.6 million years old, and is much older and more primitive than its Ice Age (Pleistocene) descendants. The extinct animal had developed special adaptations topush the snow away with its flattened horn and find vegetation, a useful behavior for survival in the harsh climate of Tibet. These rhinos lived at a time when the world’s climate was much warmer and the northern continents were free from the frost layers of the later Ice Age.
According to the authors of the find, the rhino became accustomed to cold conditions at high elevations and managed to pre-adapt to the future Ice Age climate. When this era arrived, 2.6 million years ago, rhinos descended from the high mountains and began to spread throughout northern Asia and Europe. The new fossil from Tibet suggests thatthe harsh winters of the Tibetan plateaucould have been the first step towardscold adaptation of various members of the late Pleistocene megafaunain Europe, Asia and, to a lesser extent, North America.
In addition to the new woolly rhinoceros, the team of paleontologists has also discovered fossils of other extinct species such as the three-toed horse (Hipparion), the barrel of Tibetan (Pseudois, also known as the blue ram), the chirú (Pantholops), the snow leopard (Ounce ounce), Badger (Meles meles) and 23 other types of mammals.
“It is in cold places, such as Tibet, the Arctic and Antarctica, where the most unexpected discoveries will be made in the future, as these are the borders that are still largely unexplored,” predicted Dr. Wang.
