Woolly rhinoceruses lived alongside humans in Siberia for thousands of years, before abruptly declining and disappearing at the end of the most recent Ice Age, about 14,000 years ago. At least that is what a recent DNA analysis of 14 rhinos found.
Humans entered the woolly rhinos’ homeland around 30,000 years ago. The DNA analyses of mothers’ versus fathers’ chromosomes – a measure of inbreeding and thus size of the woolly rhino’s population size – showed mothers and fathers remained diverse until about 14,000 years ago. Then the population became smaller, and parents became more closely related, until the woolly rhino went extinct.
The good news about the findings is that it lets humans off the hook! Human hunting and land use did not kill off the woolly rhinoceruses. Probably.
