A burly
"unicorn" that once plodded over grasslands in Siberia was around for
much longer than once thought — long enough to have roamed the land at the same
time as modern humans.
This
one-horned native of the steppes, Elasmotherium
sibiricum, was a hefty, furry beast in the rhino family that weighed
nearly 4 tons — more than twice the weight of a white rhinoceros, the
largest species of modern rhino.
Previous
interpretations of E. sibiricum bones
suggested that they died out 200,000 years ago, but recent analysis hints
that E. sibricum fossils
are much younger than that, dating to at least 39,000 years ago and possibly as
recently as 35,000 years ago, according to a new study. This would mean that
the "unicorn" was still around when people populated the region, the
scientists reported. [10
Extinct Giants That Once Roamed North America]
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