Buried for thousands of years and almost forgotten

The woolly rhinoceros is one of the most iconic creatures of the Pleistocene epoch, perfectly adapted to survive in the vast and harsh mammoth steppe landscape. Its body was covered in long, thick hair, providing incredible protection against the extremes of the Ice Age. The massive hump on its back was not only a physical marker, but also a storehouse of vital fat reserves to survive the bitter cold.

They lived alongside woolly mammoths, wild horses and Ice Age predators, feeding on tough grasses and hardy plants in the frozen ground. Evidence of their existence comes not only from fossil skeletons, but also from mummified carcasses frozen in the Siberian permafrost, with even their fur and soft tissue still intact.

Intriguingly, the woolly rhinoceros left a cultural imprint in early human art – cave paintings in Europe show just how important this animal was to our ancestors. Scientifically, they are a closely related evolutionary branch of Elasmotherium, the legendary “big-horned rhinoceros”, and based on DNA studies, their closest living relative today is the rare Sumatran rhinoceros.

Today, a living model of a woolly rhinoceros can be seen at the Weston Park Museum in Sheffield, a silent witness to the ancient world that shaped Earth's history.a