Carcass of woolly rhino extinct for 14,000 years found by miners digging for gold

Miners in Kolyma posed for photos with the extinct Ice Age beast (Picture: e2w)

The last woolly rhinos roamed Earth in Ice Age conditions, hunted by early humans who ate their meat and pictured them in cave drawings.

Their heyday was so long ago that we still know little about them, but now a group of gold miners have dug one up that’s still largely intact.

With a bulldozer in the background, one of the men gave the thumbs up crouching over it as he posed for for a phone photo.

The jarring mix of old and new took place in Kolyma, far eastern Russia, a region still largely covered by permafrost.

Photos show its horns still visible, with the body mummified in cold temperatures and little oxygen.

It will now be examined by scientists, with such a well-preserved specimen from our ancient past a rare find.

Other preserved specimens have been found in this area, where woolly mammoth, bison and cave lions once ruled the steppe.

The skull of the rhino dug up by miners in the far east of Russia (Picture: e2w)

How the woolly rhinoceros is thought to have looked (Picture: Shutterstock)

The carcass was found during mining for gold (Picture: social media/e2w)

The rhino was discovered in Kolyma, far eastern Russia (Picture: e2w)

Other preserved remains have been found in this area, which is covered by permafrost (Picture: e2w)

Two men lifting the preserved carcass of a baby mammoth, given the name Dima, from where it was accidently unearthed from the permafrost by a bulldozer in Magadan, Russia, in 1977 (Picture: Getty)

One of the most famous is Dima, a baby mammoth found in the Magadan region in 1977, then the only fully preserved mammoth ever known to science.

Some hope that such finds could make it possible to bring megafauna like this back to life, using DNA from their carcasses.

Scientists have looked into editing genes to make this possible, although the ethics are debated as Earth in 2024 lacks the habitat to allow them to survive.

‌‌Exactly when and why woolly rhinos died out around 14,000 years ago remains a source of some controversy, but climate chance as the ice age receded, and human hunting, have been blamed.

The miners who found the rhino were said to be surprised and delighted after cleaning the shapeless lump they found and realising what it was.

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