Scientists have analyzed the genome of a 14,400-year-old woolly rhino from a piece of its flesh found in the stomach of an ancient wolf pup. The results are giving experts insight into the woolly rhino's extinction, which probably happened rapidly due to climate change.
The woolly rhino (Coelodonta antiquitatis) tissue was found inside the mummified remains of a wolf pup, which was initially discovered in the Siberian permafrost in 2011. A subsequent necropsy of the pup revealed its final meal: It dined on one of the last woolly rhinos on Earth. But now, scientists have worked out how to sequence the animal's full genome from the undigested bits of rhino flesh.
