Scientists Find Extinct Rhino DNA in Wolf Pup Mummy’s Stomach

Scientists Find Extinct Rhino DNA in Wolf Pup Mummy’s Stomach

By Jeanne Timmons edited by Andrea Thompson

Scientists have successfully sequenced the genome of the long-extinct woolly rhinoceros from an unusual place: the stomach contents of a naturally mummified Pleistocene wolf pup from Siberia.

As its name suggests, the woolly rhinoceros (Coelodonta antiquitatis) had long, shaggy hair that made it perfectly suited for life on the frigid Eurasian steppe. The animal, which sported two horns on its snout, was comparable in size to modern rhino species. The current fossil record suggests the animal went extinct around 14,000 years ago (although there is some evidence that this may have happened as recently as 9,000 years ago). Sequencing the genomes of such extinct megafauna can help identify the culprit behind their extinction, providing tools to counter the pervasive threats species face today.

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At about 14,400 years of age, a preserved tissue fragment of the woolly rhino that the young wolf (Canis lupus) ate is one of the few examples we have of the former species at a time that was so close to its possible extinction. And surprisingly, the woolly rhino’s genetics offer no indication of a declining population. Instead researchers discovered that the population seemed to be stable and genetically healthy, with DNA similar to much older specimens and no signs of inbreeding, which would be expected if the rhino species’ numbers were dwindling. “The population [was] very stable across tens of thousands of years,” says study co-author J. Camilo Chacón-Duque, until recently a researcher at the Center for Palaeogenetics in Sweden. The study, published on Wednesday in Genome Biology and Evolution, indicates that whatever caused the woolly rhinoceros’ extinction, it happened fast.

The team suggests that a period of rapid warming in the Northern Hemisphere that began 14,700 years ago could be the cause of the extinction.

Kamilla Pawłowska, a paleontologist at Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, in Poland and founder of the WOOLRHINOPOLI Project, who was not involved in the research, praises the work but emphasizes that DNA from multiple woolly rhinos over various countries will be needed to give a more complete picture of the species’ demise.

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