An extinct creature sometimes described as a “Siberian unicorn” roamed the Earth for much longer than scientists previously thought, and may have lived alongside humans, according to a study in the American Journal of Applied Science.
Scientists believed Elasmotherium sibiricum went extinct 350,000 years ago. But the discovery of a skull in the Pavlodar region of Kazakhstan provides evidence that they only died out about 29,000 years ago.
Unfortunately, despite its sizable horn, the “Siberian unicorn” looked more like a rhinoceros than the mythical creature its nickname refers to. It was about 6 feet tall, 15 feet long, and weighed about 9,000 pounds, making it more comparable to a woolly mammoth than a horse.
Fossilized skull reveals that a Siberian "unicorn" roamed the Earth 29,000 years ago: https://t.co/a2hXW2NmG3 pic.twitter.com/gdZcJqC05w
— CA AcademyOfSciences (@calacademy) March 28, 2016
The researchers are now studying how this creature was able to survive so much longer than many of its kind.
“Most likely, the south of Western Siberia was a refúgium [refuge], where this rhino persevered the longest in comparison with the rest of its range,” Andrei Shpanski, a paleontologist at Tomsk State University, told Phys.org. “There is another possibility that it could migrate and dwell for a while in the more southern areas.”
