The carcass was stored in permafrost (illustration).
-
Mark RALSTON / AFP
A resident of Yakutia (Russia), in northeast Siberia, discovered the almost intact carcass of a young woolly rhino last August.
Analyzes have since revealed that the animal would have died more than 20,000 years ago by drowning in the Tirekhtyakh River near where his remains were found, reports
HuffPost
.
It is believed to be the best-preserved specimen ever found in this region.
The teeth, part of the intestine and pieces of tissue were still present.
The horn of this rhino, which was 3 to 4 years old at the time of its death, was even recovered near the carcass.
An exceptionally well-preserved woolly rhino with its last meal still intact found in Arctic Yakutia.
The juvenile rhino with thick hazel-colored coat was 3 to 4 four years old when it died at least 20,000 years ago;
its horn was found next to the carcass https://t.co/7hc1HnYuD0 pic.twitter.com/nS52DRp04c
- The Siberian Times (@siberian_times) December 29, 2020
Preserved in Siberian permafrost
It is the Siberian permafrost, this frozen subsoil, which would have made it possible to preserve the remains so well.
"With global warming, the permafrost is thawing more and more and the discoveries of almost complete carcasses of prehistoric animals are increasing,"
Mietje Germonpré, paleontologist at the Belgian Federal Institute of Natural Sciences
, told
RTBF
.
Valery Plotnikov, a researcher from the Russian Academy of Sciences who participated in the analyzes, estimates that this woolly rhino would have lived between 20,000 and 50,000 years before our era.
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