a fuzzy rose gold baby rhino! Yes, you read that right, this is no ordinary baby rhino. “Sasha” is a woolly rhino that lived approximately 10,000 years ago in Siberia. Sasha’s grey and mummified remains were discovered in 2015 by a hunter in the permafrost (ground that remains frozen for many years in a row) along a Siberian riverbank. When a team of scientists began cleaning and restoring the remains, they found something shocking: Sasha’s fur was a bright strawberry blond color! They also discovered that Sasha died at only 7 months old but was already approximately 5 feet long and 2.5 feet tall, about the size of an 18 month old modern rhino! Sasha’s discovery is particularly exciting because, unlike woolly mammoths, woolly rhino remains are incredibly rare and scientists know very little about their genetics, behavior, diet, or lifespan. In fact, Sasha is the only intact baby of this rhino species ever found. Scientists hope that the discovery will give them important clues into how these animals lived and about the last ice age in general, and perhaps a hint at why they went extinct. I hope that Sasha will help us learn more about this intriguing time period and the amazing animals that lived then. And for now I am content that while there is still no evidence for unicorns there is something just as cute with a horn.

Want to learn more? Visit https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/01/sasha-woolly-rhino-mummy-siberia-ice-age-spd/

Feb. 5, 2018