Paleogenomics and habitat modeling reveal temperate Eurasian origins of woolly rhinoceroses
The woolly rhinoceros was a prominent Ice Age megafaunal species, and there is limited knowledge regarding its origin and responses to past glacial cycles. We sequenced 29 mitochondrial and 14 nuclear genomes from Pleistocene specimens across Eurasia and modeled the species’ habitats over the past 500,000 years. Our results suggest that its maternal genetic diversity mainly evolved in temperate Eurasia around 460 thousand to 420 thousand years ago during a prolonged glacial-interglacial transition. We found that a ~170-thousand-year-old East Asian individual was ancestral to all later populations, indicating East Asia as one possible origin of Late Pleistocene ancestry. We also identified the Altai region as a major climatic refugium. These findings highlight the crucial role of temperate Eurasia in the evolution of woolly rhinoceroses and the diversification of cold-adapted megafauna.
Authors
- Stanislav Pavlovich Medvedev (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0916-184X)
- Katerina Douka (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0558-0011)
- М.B. Kozlikin (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5082-3345)
- M.V. Shunkov (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1388-2308)
- Jiaoyang Ruan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4733-1125)
- Vera Basova
- Qingfeng Shao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2710-9511)
- Alexandre Gilardet (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4851-3051)
- Love Dalén (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8270-7613)
- Alexandra Buzhilova (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6398-2177)
- Yu He (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1323-4730)
- Haiyan Yue (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5553-8164)
- Raquel Teixeira (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4520-6013)
- Lei Xiao-le
- 施伯华
- Xu Zhou (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9160-5889)
- Ting Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3399-9263)
- Jiangyue Zhang
- Sergey Vasiliev
- Zhihan Zhao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0007-8928-6322)
- Lijuan Ma
- Song Xing
- Xueyuan Liang
- Yu Han (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0002-7074-8455)
- Sergei Kruskop
Institutions
- University of Vienna (AT)
- University of Lisbon (PT)
- Stockholm University (SE)
- Lomonosov Moscow State University (RU)
- Swedish Museum of Natural History (SE)
- Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Cardiovascular Research (AT)
- Vernadsky State Geological Museum (RU)
- Centre for Palaeogenetics (SE)
- Institute of Archeology and Ethnography (TM)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Science
- Published
- 2026-09-10
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aed0430
- Primary Topic
- Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00