Overview
- Researchers recovered undigested woolly rhinoceros tissue from a permafrost‑preserved wolf pup found near Tumat in northeastern Siberia and radiocarbon dated it to about 14,400 years ago.
- By pooling DNA from 21 tissue extracts and using shotgun sequencing, the team assembled a near‑complete genome despite severe degradation and predator DNA contamination.
- The genome was compared with two older high‑quality woolly rhino genomes, roughly 18,000 and 49,000 years old, to assess diversity, inbreeding, and harmful mutations through time.
- Analyses showed stable heterozygosity and no rise in inbreeding or genomic erosion, indicating a genetically healthy population until a swift decline around the end of the Ice Age.
- The study, published in Genome Biology and Evolution by Stockholm University’s Centre for Palaeogenetics, argues the crash likely coincided with abrupt Bølling–Allerød warming and was not primarily driven by sustained human hunting.