Washington, Sept 17 (ANI): A Florida State University geochemist and his team have uncovered the oldest prehistoric woolly rhino ever found in Tibet.
Yang Wang and an international group of palaeontologists set out in 2007 to explore one of the most isolated places on earth, the Zanda (ZAH-dah) Basin in Tibet, located at the feet of the Himalayan Mountains.
There they found the complete skull and lower jaw of a previously unknown and long-extinct animal. They christened it the Tibetan woolly rhino (Coelodonta thibetana).
"This is the oldest, most primitive woolly rhino ever found," Wang said of the team's discovery.
Tibetan woolly rhino was stocky like today's rhino but had long, thick hair. It is often mentioned in the same breath with woolly mammoths, giant sloths and sabertooth cats, all giant mammals of the period that became extinct.
Prior to the team's discovery, the oldest woolly rhino ever found was 2.6 million years old, making it an inhabitant of the Pleistocene era (2.6 million years ago to 11,700 years ago).
But the Tibetan woolly rhino found by the team is 3.7 million years old. That means it lived during the Pliocene epoch (5.3 million to 2.6 million years ago).
The new time frame also indicates that the Tibetan woolly rhino was alive before the last Ice Age.
The discovery was just published in journal Science. (ANI)
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