/wion/media/agency_attachments/2024/12/26/2024-12-26t112006978z-wion-white-logo-for-website-2-1.png){kind=logo}
/wion/media/agency_attachments/2024/12/13/2024-12-13t071548098z-wionlogo.webp)
/wion/media/member_avatars/2024/12/29/2024-12-28t192729012z-img-20241226-wa0001-1.jpg)
/wion/media/member_avatars/2024/12/29/2024-12-28t192729012z-img-20241226-wa0001-1.jpg)
/wion/media/post_attachments/files/2024/06/06/436159-capture.JPG)
Canberra, Australia
Scientists have claimed that human activity, especially hunting, may have led to the extinction of the woolly rhinoceros around 10,000 years ago. Researchers from the University of Adelaide and the University of Copenhagen used computer models to analyse and resolve this mystery.
"Using computer models, fossils and ancient DNA, we traced 52,000 years of population history of the woolly rhinoceros across Eurasia at a resolution not previously considered possible," said lead author Associate Professor Damien Fordham, from the University of Adelaide's Environment Institute.
"This showed that from 30,000 years ago, a combination of cooling temperatures and low but sustained hunting by humans caused the woolly rhinoceros to contract its distribution southward, trapping it in a scattering of isolated and rapidly deteriorating habitats at the end of the Last Ice Age," he added.
"As Earth thawed and temperatures rose, populations of woolly rhinoceros were unable to colonize important new habitats opening up in the north of Eurasia, causing them to destabilize and crash, bringing about their extinction," he said further.
These creatures roamed on earth 10,000 years ago in and around northern and central Eurasia and had thick skin and long fur.
Also read: Scientists discover giant viruses that eat ice-melting algae in the Arctic
Previous research had suggested that humans had no role to play in the extinction of these animals but the new study, published in PNAS, throws open new dynamics.
"The demographic responses revealed by our analysis were at a much higher resolution to those captured in previous genetic studies," said Professor Eline Lorenzen, from the University of Copenhagen's Globe Institute.
"This allowed us to pinpoint important interactions that woolly rhinoceroses had with humans and document how these changed through space and time. One of these largely overlooked interactions was persistent low levels of hunting by humans, probably for food."
(With inputs from agencies)