Siberian unicorns lived among people - they are even more fascinating than the mythical creatures

Researchers have found that the Siberian unicorn lived longer than expected and lived in the midst of modern humans.

London - There are numerous myths about unicorns, the mythical creatures that have experienced a real boom in recent years (* FR reported).

In a recent study, scientists have shown that unicorns actually existed - albeit in a different form than we know them.

Research has long assumed that the so-called Siberian unicorn with the name

died out 200,000 years ago.

The team of scientists led by Adrian Lister from the Natural History Museum London succeeded in refuting this assumption.

They published the results of their study in the journal "Nature Ecology".

The Siberian unicorn was a species related to today's rhinoceros.

Siberian unicorn: Extinct due to climate change

The researchers examined 23 skeletons of rhinoceros fossils using the radiocarbon method. With the radiocarbon method, the age of carbonaceous organic materials can be determined. The method is based on the radioactive decay of the carbon isotope 14C. The researchers found that the Siberian unicorn lived in Eastern Europe and Central Asia - until 39,000 years ago. Exactly when modern man spread across the earth. So unicorn and human coexisted.

According to researchers, the Siberian unicorn wore thick black fur and weighed around 3.5 tons. Its horn was up to a meter long. They suspect that the changed climate could have led to the extinction of the Siberian unicorn. Due to the gradual warming after the ice age, the dry steppe landscape disappeared as the only source of food for the unicorn. * FR