Becky Ferreira for Motherboard:
Led by Pavel Kosintsev, a paleontologist at the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, a team of researchers concluded that the Siberian unicorn died out around 39,000 years ago, suggesting that modern humans and Neanderthals shared Eurasia with this epic beast during its final years on Earth. Previous estimates held that the rhino went extinct 200,000 years ago.
The title of the article I’m referring to is “Climate Change Killed the ‘Siberian Unicorn,’ Study Says”. Missleading, but still interesting.
“It is unlikely that the presence of humans was the cause of extinction,” said co-author Chris Turney, a climate scientist at the University of New South Wales, in a statement. “The Siberian unicorn appears to have been badly hit by the start of the Ice Age in Eurasia when a precipitous fall in temperature led to an increase in the amount of frozen ground, reducing the tough, dry grasses it lived on and impacting populations over a vast region.”