Long-haired rhinoceros carcass (Source: Associated Press)
According to the British "Guardian" reported on the 30th, a well-preserved ice age long-haired rhinoceros was found in the permafrost in the northernmost part of Russia, and many of its internal organs are still intact.
Russian media reported on Wednesday that the body was found after the Permafrost in Yakutia was thawed in August. Scientists are waiting for the Arctic ice road to pass in order to send the animal carcass to a laboratory for study in January.
The body is one of the best-preserved specimens of long-haired rhinoceros ever found. Most of its soft tissues remain intact, including part of the intestine, some thick hair, and a lump of fat. Scientists have also found its horns next to it.
In recent years, ice within the permafrost has been melting in large areas of Siberia due to global warming, which has led to major discoveries in mammoths, long-haired rhinos and cave lion cubs. Earlier, a team of scientists found the remains of a 40,000-year-old foal in the permafrost of the Batagaika crater in Yakutia, Siberia.
Yakutia 24 TV quoted Valery Plotnikov, a paleontologist at the regional branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, as saying the long-haired rhino may have died at the age of three or four. He said the baby rhinos might have drowned.
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Scientists determined the body was between 20,000 and 50,000 years old. Once radiocarbon studies can be completed in the laboratory, they can be more precisely dated.
(Editor: WDQ)