Ancient woolly rhino extinction was due to climate change: Study

Team Udayavani, Aug 15, 2020, 4:58 PM IST

Researchers claim that the extinction of woolly rhinoceros may have been caused by climate change and not overhunting.

It is said that the woolly rhinoceros population remained stable and diverse until only a few thousand years before it disappeared from Siberia when temperatures likely rose too high for the species.

The study, published in Current Biology, notes that the rhino population stayed fairly consistent for tens of thousands of years until 18,500 years ago.

According to The Guardian, additional analysis of mitochondria DNA from 14 woolly rhinos, ranging from 50,000 to 14,000 years old, backed up the findings, showing high genetic diversity was present even near the time of their extinction.