Albert Protopopov, head of the department for the study of mammoth fauna at the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Sakha, told journalists that the scientific group had begun studying the remains of a baby of an extinct woolly rhinoceros, given to them by Yakut hunters who had accidentally discovered the unique find.
The uniqueness of this discovery is that until this point, scientists had only bones and fragments of frozen carcasses of adult woolly rhinoceros, which lived in what is now Asia and Europe during the Pleistocene and became completely extinct a maximum of 9 thousand years ago.
Albert Protopopov admitted that the remains of the extinct mammal obtained will help to significantly expand knowledge about this species.
It should be noted that the carcass of a woolly rhinoceros cub was discovered by hunters in the Abyisky District. Yakutia back in the fall of 2014, but scientists have only just now obtained it. The dead cub had lain in permafrost for thousands of years and thawed relatively recently due to global warming. Small animals had managed to seriously damage the carcass, but it was nevertheless well preserved. animal skull, some soft tissue, skin and skeletal fragments.
