Abstract
The results of anatomical and morphological studies of new corpse remains of the fossil woolly rhinoceros found in 2007 in the lower reaches of the Kolyma River are described. These new data provide additional details of the specific features of the structures and sizes of individual body parts of the fossil rhinoceros and allow for several inferences on the specific adaptations of this species to the cold climate of the Ice Age. Palynological data for the stomach contents of the woolly rhinoceroses that lived during the Karginian interglacial period of the Late Pleistocene are given. It is been shown that herbs (cereals and forbs) account for the major part of the woolly rhinoceros diet.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Besesek, M., Radu, V.A., and Lascu, V., Discovery of a New Decorated Palaeolitihic Cave (Pestera Coliboaia) in Romania, Bihor Department, Int. Newsl. Rock Art, 2010, vol. 57, pp. 8–11.
Boeskorov, G.G., Woolly Rhino (Coelodonta antiquitatis) Distribution in Northeast Asia, Deinsea, 2001, no. 8, pp. 15–20.
Boeskorov, G.G. and Isakova, L.F., Collections of Quaternary Mammals in the Irkutsk Regional Museum of Local Lore, Kraeved. Zapiski, 1999, no. 6, pp. 14–28.
Boeskorov, G.G., Lazarev, P.A., Bakulina, N.T., Shchelchkova, M.V., Davydov, S.P., and Solomonov, N.G., Preliminary Study of a Mummified Woolly Rhinoceros from the Lower Reaches of the Kolyma River, Doklady Biol. Sci., 2009, vol. 424, pp. 53–56.
Boeskorov, G.G., Bakulina, N.T., Davydov, S.P., Shchelchkova, M.V., and Solomonov, N.G., Study of Pollen and Spores from the Stomach of a Fossil Woolly Rhinoceros Found in the Lower Reaches of the Kolyma River, Doklady Biol Sci., 2011, vol. 436, pp. 23–25.
Borsuk-Byalynicka, M., Studies on the Pleistocene Rhinoceros Coelodonta antiquitatis (Blumenbach), Palaentol. Polon., 1973, no. 29, pp. 4–97.
Brandt, J.F., De rhinocerotis antiquitatis seu tichorhini seu pallasii structura externa et osteologica observationes e reliquiis quae in museis Petropolitanis servantur erutae, Mem. Acad. Imper. Sci. St. Petersbourg, 1849, vol. 6, no. 5, pp. 161–416.
Chauvet, J.-M., Brunel-Deschamps, E., and Hillaire, C., La Grotte Chauvet a Vallon-Pont-d’Arc, Paris: Arts Rupestres, 1995.
Chernova, O.F., Sher, A.V., and Garutt, N.V., Morphology of the Horns of Woolly Rhinoceroses (Coelodonta antiquitatis), Zool. Zh., 1998, vol. 77, no. 1, pp. 66–79.
Cherskii, I.D., Description of the Head of Siberian Rhinoceros Found in the Verkhoyansk Region in 1877, Izv. Vost.-Sib. Otd. Imp. Russ. Geogr. Ob-va, 1879, vol. 10, nos. 1–2, pp. 36–59.
Davydov, S.P., Boeskorov, G.G., Sher, A.V., Bakulina, N.T., Davydova, A.I., and Shchelchkova, M.V., Mammoth Fauna Burial Places of the North-East Kolyma Lowland Submontane Zone, Proc. Int. Conf. “Environment Development of East Asia in Pleistocene-Holocene: Boundaries, Factors, Stages of Human Mastering,” Vladivostok, 2009, pp. 81–84.
Formozov, A.N., Snow Cover As an Ebvironmental Factor: Significance for the Life of Mammals and Birds in the Soviet Union, in Materialy k poznaniyu fauny i flory SSSR (Materials on the Study of the Fauna and Flora of the Soviet Union), Moscow: Mosk. Ob-vo Ispyt. Prir., 1946.
Fortelius, M., The Morphological and Paleobiological Significance of the Horns of Coelodonta antiquitatis (Mammalia: Rhinocerotidae), J. Vertebr. Paleontol., 1983, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 125–135.
Garutt, N.W., Neue Angaben uber die Horner des Haarnashorns Coelodonta antiquitatis (Blumenbach, 1799), Deinsea, 1998, no. 4, pp. 25–39.
Garutt, N.W., On the History of Studies on the Woolly Rhinoceros Coelodonta antiquitatis (Blumenbach, 1799), in Mamont i ego okruzhenie: 200 let izucheniya (The Mammoth and Its Environment: 200 Years of Study), Moscow: GEOS, 2001, pp. 23–33.
Garutt, N.W. and Boeskorov, G.G., The Woolly Rhinoceroses: On the History of the Genus, in Mamont i ego okruzhenie: 200 let izucheniya (The Mammoth and Its Environment: 200 Years of Study), Moscow: GEOS, 2001, pp. 157–167.
Garutt, W.E., Das Mammut Mammuthus primigenius (Blumenbach), Stuttgart: Cosmos Verlag, 1964.
Garutt, W.E., Metel’tseva, E.P., and Tikhomirov, B.A., New Data on the Feeding of the Wooly Rhinoceros, in Severnyi Ledovityi okean i ego poberezh’e v kainozoe (The Arctic Ocean and Its Coast in the Cenosoic), Leningrad: Gidrometeoizdat, 1970, pp. 113–125.
Groves, C.P., Asian Rhinoceroses: Down but not out, Malayan Naturalist, 1982, vol. 36, no. 1, pp. 11–22.
Groves, C.P. and Kurt, F., Dicerorhinus sumatrensis, Mamm. Species, 1972, no. 21, pp. 1–6.
Heller, E., The White Rhinoceros, Smithson. Misc. Coll., 1913, vol. 61, no. 1, pp. 1–56.
Karavaev, M.N. and Skryabin, S.Z., Rastitel’nyi mir Yakutii (The Flora of Yakutia), Yakutsk, 1971.
Kubiak, H., Uber die Bedeutung der Kadaver des Wollhaarnashorns von Starunia, Ber. Deutsch. Ges. Geol. Wiss. A: Geol. Palaontol., 1969, vol. 14, no. 3, pp. 345–347.
Kuz’mina, I.E., On the Origin and History of Siberian Arctic Fauna, in Fauna i flora antropogena Severo-Vostoka Sibiri (The Fauna and Flora of the Anthropogene in Northeastern Siberia), Leningrad: Nauka, 1977, pp. 18–53.
Laurie, W.A., Lang, E.M., and Groves, C.P., Rhinoceros unicornis, Mamm. Species, 1984, no. 211, pp. 1–6.
Lazarev, P.A. and Tirskaya, N.F., On the Remains of the Woolly Rhinoceros in the Village of Churapcha (Central Yakutia) and on Palynological Spectra in Surrounding Deposits, in Palinologicheskie materialy k stratigrafii osadochnykh otlozhenii Yakutii (Palynological Materials on the Stratigraphy of Sedimentary Deposits in Yakutia), Yakutsk: Yakut. Fil. Sib. Otd. Akad. Nauk SSSR, 1975, pp. 66–72.
Lazarev, P.A., Boeskorov, G.G., Tomskaya, A.I., Garutt, N.V., Vasil’ev, E.M., and Kasparov, A.K., Mlekopitayushchie antropogena Yakutii (Mammals of the Anthropogene in Yakutia), Yakutsk: Yakut. Nauch. Tsentr Akad. Nauk SSSR, 1998.
Leroi-Gourhan, A., Grotte de Lascaux, in L’Art des cavernes: Atlas des grottes ornées paléolithiques francaises, Paris: Ministére de la Culture, 1984, pp. 180–200.
Nasimovich, A.A., Rol’ rezhima snezhnogo pokrova v zhizni kopytnykh zhivotnykh na territorii SSSR (The Role of Snow Cover Regime in the Life of Ungulates in the Soviet Union), Moscow: Akad. Nauk SSSR, 1955.
Niezabitowski, E., Bayger, J., Hoyer, H., Kjernik, E., et al., Wykopaliska Starunskie slon mamut (Elephas primigenius Blum.) nosorozec wlochaty (Rhinoceros antiquitatis Blum., Rh. tichorhinus Fisch.) wraz wsplczesna Flora u Fauna. Krakow Nakladem Museum im. Dzieduszyckich, Krakow: Czeionkami drukarni W.L. Anczyca. 1914.
Nowak, J., Panow, E., Tokarski, J., Szafer, W., and Stach, J., The Second Woolly Rhinoceros (Coelodonta antiquitatis Blum.) from Starunia, Poland, Bull. Int. Acad. Pol. Sci. Lettres, Sci. Math. et Nat. Ser. B, Suppl., 1930.
Pigeaud, R., Rodet, J., Deviése, Th., Dufayet, Cl., Trelohan-Chauve, E., Betton, J.-P., and Bonic, P., Palaeolithic Cave Art in West France: An Exceptional Discovery, the Margot Cave (Mayenne), Antiquity, 2006, vol. 80, no. 309. http://antiquity.ac.uk/ProjGall/pigeaud/index.html
Schrenck, L., Der erste Fund einer Leiche von Rhinoceros merckii Jaeger, Mem. Acad. Imper. Sci. St. Petersbourg, 1880, vol. 27, pp. 1–55.
Sher, A.V., Mlekopitayushchie i stratigrafiya pleistotsena Krainego Severo-Vostoka SSSR i Severnoi Ameriki (Mammals and Pleistocene Stratigraphy of the Far North of the Soviet Union and North America), Moscow: Nauka, 1971.
Sher, A.V., Natural Restructuring in the Eastern Siberian Arctic at the Pleistocene-Holocene Boundary and Its Role in the Extinction of Mammals and the Establishment of Recent Ecosystems: Communication 1, Kriosfera Zemli, 1997, no. 1, pp. 21–29.
Velichko, A.A., Prirodnyi protsess v pleistotsene (The Natural Process in the Pleistocene), Moscow: Nauka, 1973.
Velichko, A.A. and Zelikson, E.M., Landscape-Climatic Conditions and Resource Basis of the Existence of Mammoth, in Mamont i ego okruzhenie: 200 let izucheniya (The Mammoth and Its Environment: 200 Years of Study), Moscow: GEOS, 2001, pp. 188–199.
Vereshchagin, N.K., Taphonomic Notes, in Fauna i flora antropogena Severo-Vostoka Sibiri (The Fauna and Flora of the Anthropogene in Northeastern Siberia), Leningrad: Nauka, 1977, pp. 79–84.
Vereshchagin, N.K. and Tikhonov, A.N., Ekster’er mamonta (The Exterior of the Mammoth), Yakutsk: Sib. Otd. Akad. Nauk SSSR, 1990.
Walker, E.R., Warnick, F., Lange, K.I., Uible, H.E., Hamlet, S.E., Davies, M.A., and Wright, P.F., Mammals of the World, Baltimore: John Hopkins, 1964.
Yudichev, Yu.F., Efimov, S.I., and Khonin, G.A., Anatomiya domashnikh zhivotnykh (Anatomy of Domestic Animals), Omsk: OmGAU, 2003, vol. 1, pp. 278–281.
Yukagirskii mamont (The Yukagir Mammoth), St. Petersburg: S.-Peterb. Gos. Univ., 2007.
Zukowsky, I., PatDie Systematik der Gattung Diceros Gray, 1821, Zool. Garten Neue Folge, 1965, vol. 30, pp. 1–178.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Original Russian Text © G.G. Boeskorov, 2012, published in Zoologicheskii Zhurnal, 2012, Vol. 91, No. 2, pp. 219–235.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Boeskorov, G.G. Some specific morphological and ecological features of the fossil woolly rhinoceros (Coelodonta antiquitatis Blumenbach 1799). Biol Bull Russ Acad Sci 39, 692–707 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1134/S106235901208002X
Received:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1134/S106235901208002X