Paleo Profiles: Elasmotherium

Reconstruction by W.S. van der Merwe

The Ice Age has become synonymous with larger than life woolly animals ranging from the Megaloceros, a deer with antlers the same length as a human is high, the woolly rhino Coelodonta, and the famous woolly mammoth. However, another woolly rhino roamed the plains of Ice Age Eurasia - the Elasmotherium. Often called the 'Siberian Unicorn' for its long horn the Elasmotherium is one of the many unique animals to roam the Ice Age world.

Discovery and Fossils

A skeleton at Azov History, Archaeology and Paleontology Museum-Reserve

The Elasmotherium was first described at the start of the 1800s by a Russian/German palaeontologist called Gotthelf Fischer von Waldheim. The fossil had been owned by a close friend of Catherine the Great, Yekaterina Dashkova, who donated it to the Moscow University in 1807, so Waldheim described it the following year. He named the fossil Elasmotherium sibericum - Thin Plate Beast from Siberia. Since then, many more fossils of this extinct rhino have been found across Eurasia, ranging from Siberia and China in east Asia all the way up to Ukraine in eastern Europe. A second species of Elasmotherium was discovered in 1914 by another Russian palaeontologist Aleksei Borissiak in the Caucasus region along the Black Sea - this new species was far older and was named Elasmotherium caucasicum. Research in the early-2000s found that some of the fossils assigned to the Caucasus species was in fact that of a different species of Elasmotherium - this new species was named Elasmotherium chaprovicum. As the Elasmotherium went extinct relatively recently in the history of the planet palaeontologists have recently managed to take DNA samples from fossils, something which allows us to know that Elasmotherium was on the rhino evolutionary tree, and we may even have cave art. Art by our ancestors can give palaeontologists good insights into how prehistoric animals looked and acted. Rouffignac Cave in France depicts a wide range of now extinct animals, mostly mammoths, but one has puzzled archaeologists. One seemed to be a one-horned rhino, but the Coelodonta, known to live in the area and alongside humans, had two horns. Although it can easily be a Coelodonta with artistic licensing, it could also be an Elasmotherium possibly showing that people in France somewhat knew about the Elasmotherium.

When and Where

The distribution of fossils by Schvyreva

The genus of Elasmotherium first appeared in the Pliocene about 2.5 million years ago - these fossils were from the caucasicum and chaprovicum species. Eventually these two species would go extinct, and they evolved into the better known Elasmotherium sibericum. Recent research has revealed an interesting aspect of when the Elasmotherium went extinct. Traditionally, it has been believed that the Elasmotherium went extinct sometime between 200,000 and 100,000 years ago during an epoch known as the Pleistocene. As this was many thousands of years before the large-scale Pleistocene Extinction, caused through a mixture of climate change and human activity, for sometime it was believed that it was a victim of 'natural extinction'. This is when a species naturally goes extinct, and a new species evolves to fill the vacant ecological role left behind. However, research done on 23 fossils in 2018 found that Elasmotherium managed to survive until a long time after this date. Through radiocarbon dating it has been found that they managed to survive in what is now Kazakhstan until as recent as 39,000 years ago. Elasmotherium was found from eastern Europe all the way up to Siberia at their height, so this Central Asian population represented the last of the rhinos. 

Biology

A possible depiction in Rouffignac Cave

Unlike the better known woolly rhino, there has been many debates about the biology of the Elasmotherium. The big issue is its horn. You will often see this rhino recreated with one big horn, earning it the nickname of 'the Siberian unicorn'. However, there is an issue with this - we don't actually know if it had a horn. Rhino horn is made of keratin, the same material which our nails and hair is made of, which does not preserve as easily as bone, so few Elasmotherium horn has been preserved. It is more than likely that it did have a horn, especially as other Pleistocene rhinos had horns. Now that DNA analysis has found that Elasmotherium is indeed in the same family as modern rhinos, it is certain that they had a horn. Another question then arises, what did the horn look like? Rhino horns can look very different species to species, and one hypothesis is that each Elasmotherium species had a horn looking different to others. This is especially the case as the early species lived alongside one another; the shape of the horns could be a quick way to differentiate between the two species. All of them likely would have thick muscles around the shoulders so they could lift up their heads.

Another debate is whether Elasmotherium had thick fur. A paper from 1878 has claimed that they did comparing them to 'contemporary rhinoceros and mammoth'. However, this is based on an idea that the Ice Age was a continuous period of icy coldness - instead there were glacial periods which moved between periods of warmth and bitter cold. It is quite likely that during the warmer periods they would have had thinner layers of fur, which gave way to thick shaggy fur during the cold periods. The Siberian cold was also dry, so a thick layer of fur could better trap in the heat. Unlike other rhinos, the Elasmotherium had quite long legs, so it is quite possible that they stood more upright, similar to horses, than other rhinos. This has led to some off reconstructions like the one below:

The reconstruction by Heinrich Harder, c.1920

It is likely that Elasmotherium moved like a modern bison. Its head close to the earth grazing, with long legs allowing it to run fast. For this reason, it is possible that it could gallop at quite fast speeds.

Diet and Habitat

Isotope analysis has allowed us to know what the Elasmotherium ate. High levels of certain compounds indicate that they would have eaten tough grasses, and this is further shown by their teeth. Their teeth have deep roots, and fossilised teeth show indication of continuous wear. If you see how a modern white rhino eats this is how the Elasmotherium would also eat. They were perfectly adapted to their particular environment. Just like today, large areas of Ukraine, Siberia, and Central Asia are grasslands with nothing to see for miles, something which gets covered in snow during the winter. Elasmotherium had wide feet which would allow them to wade through snow, and their big horn would also be useful to move snow so they could access the grass beneath. Due to the low nutrition in tough grasses, and based on how rhinos claim wide areas as their territory, an Elasmotherium would actually be a fairly rare sight. A solitary life to monopolise access to grass, only meeting up to mate. Other animals would have lived alongside this rhino. Looking at fossils from eastern Europe dating from around 200,000 years ago, A.K. Schyreva has shown that they would have lived alongside now extinct camel and bison species, early mammoths, saiga antelope, and the giant antlered Megaloceros. The later ones would have also lived alongside the famous woolly mammoth, and most likely humans. Some fossils have been found in Italy, and possible presence in cave art meant that humans could have also lived alongside them.

Extinction

Skeleton Reconstruction, photo can be found here

Now that we know that Elasmotherium went extinct around 39,000 years ago we can put them as one of the casualties of the Quaternary extinction event. Beginning around 130,000 years ago the peak of the extinctions occurred between 12-8,000 years ago, but it is important to remember that the Elasmotherium was limited to a smaller area by 39,000 years ago. At this time cooler temperatures started chaging the environment, and the grasses which the rhinos grazed on gave way to lichens and mosses. Especially as more herbivores could eat these plants, it meant that the rhinos suddenly had far more competition, on top of their primary food source becoming depleted. As expected, humanity sealed the deal. As humans started moving into areas inhabited by Elasmotherium they would start hunting them. Consequently, the struggling pockets of rhinos would be pushed into extinction - a tale unfortunately all too common.

The sources I have used are as follows:

-A.K. Schyreva, 'On the importance of the representatives of the genus Elasmotherium (Rhinocerotidae, Mammalia) in the biochronology of the Pleistocene of Eastern Europe', Quaternary International, 379, (2015), 128-134

-'The Elasmotherium', Nature, 18:458, (1878), 387-389

-Pavel Kosintsev, Kieren J. Mitchell, Thibaut Devièse, Johannes van der Plicht, Margot Kuitems, Ekaterina Petrova, Alexei Tikhonov, Thomas Higham, Daniel Comeskey, Chris Turney, Alan Cooper, Thijs van Kolfschoten, Anthony J. Stuart, and Adrian M. Lister, 'Evolution and Extinction of the giant rhinoceros Elasmotherium sibiricum sheds light on the late Quaternary megafaunal extinctions', Nature, 3, (2019), 31-38

-'Elasmotherium', Prehistoric-Wildlife.com, [Accessed 31/01/2020]

-Josh Davis, 'The Siberian unicorn lived at the same time as modern humans', Natural History Museum, (26/11/2018), [Accessed 31/01/2020]

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