The TSU press service said that the university’s Paleontological Museum, which is celebrating its centenary this year, has been supplemented with a partial skeleton of an Elasmotherium (Elasmotherium sibiricum) — an ancient rhinoceros the size of an Indian elephant. This is the first case in Western Siberia where not an isolated fragment was found, but numerous remains of the spine, and a scientific article with the research results will soon be published in one of the journals.
The remains were discovered in the far south of Western Siberia, near the village of Kirillovka in Northern Kazakhstan, where they were found by local residents. According to Andrey Shpansky, head of the Department of Paleontology and Historical Geology at the TSU Faculty of Geology and Geography, the bones of one animal lay over an area of about 4 sq. m: a massive molar tooth, cervical, thoracic, and caudal vertebrae, ribs, pelvic elements, as well as the radius, ulna, and tibia.
Along with the Elasmotherium bones, a upper tooth of a woolly rhinoceros, fragments of a skull, and bones of an ancient horse were found. This is the second case in Western Siberia in which an Elasmotherium and a woolly rhinoceros were found in the same layer. Previously, in Western Siberia and Kazakhstan, mainly only isolated Elasmotherium bones had been found.
Analysis suggests that the animals died in autumn on the shore or in shallow water, and soft tissues kept the bones together for a long time. Spring flooding quickly buried them on a sandy-clay shoal, and no traces of predator teeth or water rounding were found on the bones. The remains belong to an adult individual about 20 years old that lived about 350,000 years ago.
Study of the left bone showed that it is a large adult female. With the same length as European specimens, the bone turned out to be noticeably more graceful, and calculations of the gracility index confirmed the conclusion about the animal’s sex. Female Elasmotheriums were only slightly smaller than males, while still retaining very large size.
The Elasmotherium is considered the largest rhinoceros of the past 2.5 million years: its shoulder height reached 2.5 m, and its weight — up to 3 tons. It had a massive bony dome on its skull, but the question of the horn remains disputed because horn material consists of keratin and does not preserve in fossil form. The Elasmotherium’s teeth had no roots, grew throughout life, and were constantly worn down, while its long legs allowed it to cover great distances in search of food.
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