MINERS have found an almost perfectly preserved shaggy rhino that experts hope to bring back to life.
The magnificent 10,000-year-old beast was found by stunned workers who were digging for gold.
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The exceptional discovery was in the Gulag prison Kolyma camp region in eastern Russia.
Scientists will now examine the rhino that was mummified by permafrost.
There are hopes of bringing these extinct animals – including woolly mammoths – back to life using DNA found in these carcasses preserved in ice.
The photos show the discovery including the horn still intact after preservation in ice.
Woolly rhinos became practically extinct around 10,000 years ago, with the end of the last Ice Age.
Climate change and possibly human hunting may have contributed to the species’ disappearance.
Gold miners who found the latest discovery were “surprised and delighted” by their unexpected treasure.
It turns out that archaeologists recently discovered three new species of ancient giant kangaroos.
The fossils were found in Australia and New Guinea and suggest the species was much more diverse than previously thought.
The three newly discovered species belong to an extinct group called Protemnodon.
These creatures lived between 5 million and 40 thousand years ago.
The largest was about twice the size of modern kangaroos.
Lead researcher Dr. Isaac Kerr and a team focused on three fossils for the study.
The complete fossils were found in 2013, 2018 and 2019 and all belong to the genus Protemnodon.
woolly rhino
The hairy rhino had a very large and thick body with four short, stubby legs. Its shaggy fur and thick body helped it survive in cold climates.
It also had two huge horns on its snout and was related to today’s rhinoceros.
After the most recent ice age ended about 11,700 years ago, the woolly rhino went extinct.
It measured about 4 meters long and 2 meters high.
The front horn on the animal’s head was larger. It measured almost 3 feet (1 meter).
The woolly rhinoceros ate mainly grass, plants, trees and mosses and lived alone or in small family groups.
A new study on the fossils was published in the journal Megatax.
The largest ancient kangaroo mentioned in the study is called Protemnodon viator.
It was much larger and weighed up to 375 kilograms, twice as much as a male red kangaroo.
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This story originally appeared on The-sun.com read the full story
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