Digested Woolly Rhino DNA From Wolf Cub Sheds Light on a Sudden Extinction
Scientists decoded the woolly rhinoceros genome from a piece of tissue found in the stomach of a two‑month‑old wolf cub preserved in Siberian permafrost, marking the first time an ice-age genome has been retrieved from meat inside another animal. Comparisons with older rhino genomes show the population was large and stable before a rapid extinction about 300–400 years earlier, likely driven by abrupt warming during the late glacial period rather than prolonged hunting. The find, along with a second wolf cub at the same site, highlights a complex late‑Pleistocene ecosystem and provides a new genetic window into how these animals disappeared.
