Real-life unicorn went extinct much later than thought: study

Yes, unicorns were real. But they weren’t the cuddly looking horse-like creatures of lore.

New research suggests that modern humans and the Elasmotherium sibiricum — known as the Siberian unicorn — may have co-existed.

Siberian unicorns lived about 2.5 million years ago. They resembled more of a hairy rhinoceros, measuring about two metres tall and four-and-a-half metres long and weighing up to 4,000 kg.

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It was believed that the horned beast went extinct about 350,000 years ago. But researchers from Tomsk State University (TSU) used radiocarbon dating on a newly discovered fossilized skull and dated it to a mere 29,000 years ago. The scientists believe that it belonged to a large male.

If the Siberian unicorn roamed Earth less than 350,000 years ago, that would put it with modern humans, which are believed to have evolved about 200,000 years ago.

How it came to be that some E. sibiricum lived so much longer than others remains a mystery to the researchers.

“Most likely, in the south of Western Siberia it was a refúgium, where this rhino had preserved the longest in comparison with the rest of its range,” said Andrey Shpanski, a paleontologist at TSU. There is another option that it could migrate and dwell for a while on the more southern areas.”

The researchers hope to use the new information to not only better understand what happened in the past, but to also determine what could happen in the future.

“Our research makes adjustments in the understanding of the environmental conditions in the geologic time in general. Understanding of the past allows us to make more accurate predictions about natural processes in the near future,” said Shpanski.

The study was published in the American Journal of Applied Sciences.