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Climate change, not hunters, may have killed off woolly rhinos

Ancient DNA indicates the creatures’ numbers stayed mostly constant long after people showed up

illustration of a woolly rhino

Ancient DNA suggests that rising temperatures, not human hunters, wiped out woolly rhinos (illustrated).

Daniel Eskridge/iStock/Getty Images Plus

By Bruce Bower

- More than 2 years ago

Rather than getting wiped out by Ice Age hunters, woolly rhinos charged to extinction in Siberia around 14,000 years ago when the climate turned warm and wet, a study of ancient DNA suggests.