Scientists recover genome from woolly rhino eaten by Ice Age wolf

January 15, 2026 6:27 PM

Scientists recover genome from woolly rhino eaten by Ice Age wolf

About 14,400 years ago, a weeks-old wolf puppy ate its last meal - meat from a woolly rhinoceros - shortly before dying on the harsh Ice Age landscape of northeastern Siberia. In a first, researchers have extracted DNA and recovered the rhino's genome from a chunk of undigested meat from the stomach contents found in the puppy's remains, discovered in permafrost near the village of Tumat. These genome findings provided insight into the fate of this impressive cold-adapted horned herbivore speci...

RNA recovered from Siberian mammoth that died 39,000 years ago

November 16, 2025 3:23 PM

RNA recovered from Siberian mammoth that died 39,000 years ago

Scientists have recovered the oldest-known RNA, a molecule necessary for most biological functions, from a woolly mammoth that inhabited Siberia about 39,000 years ago, showing it can last longer than previously known and promising a new path for studying organisms that lived long ago. The RNA, successfully isolated and sequenced, was extracted from muscle tissue in the left front leg of a juvenile male mammoth, perhaps five to 10 years old, whose carcass was discovered in 2010 in the Siberian ...