A latest scientific discovery suggests that a unique and bizarre long-extinct mammal, named Siberian Unicorn, must have walked on earth alongside early humans. Earlier, it was assumed that this species vanished from the earth around 350,000 years ago, but a fossil of a skull discovered in Kazakhstan rejects this assumption and suggests that this animal must have walked on earth till around 29,000 years ago. This is the same time around which our early ancestors must have started making pictures on cave walls and also started domesticating wild dogs.
This discovery came to light after a team of academician from Tomsk State University, Russia, found this skull of the mammal, scientifically named Elasmotherium Sibiricum, and conducted radiocarbon dating to determine its actual age. However, this unicorn is nothing like what we wish it to be like. Rather, it is shaggy, massive, similar to modern rhinos, and had a tremendous horn on the forehead.
Impression drawn by Heinrich Harder in 1920About the discovered fossil skull, Andrey Shpanski, a paleontologist at Tomsk State University, stated that “Most likely, it was a very large male of very large individual age (teeth not preserved). The dimensions of this rhino are the biggest of those described in the literature, and the proportions are typical,”
This recent discovery is expected to help this team of scientists to understand how environmental factors affected the extinction of this massive mammal.
It seems it’s time to accept that unicorns are real.
Story Inputs: Phys.org