2023-11-03 12:14:18
Study the genome of an extinct species using predator droppings? This is the challenge taken up by scientists, who have made a major advance in the knowledge of the woolly rhino, a prehistoric mammal.
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[EN VIDÉO] A young woolly rhino discovered almost intact in Siberia In the Siberian permafrost, a Russian discovered the remains of a young woolly rhino. Her…
Scientific progress sometimes takes obscure paths, as the discovery of European woolly rhinoceros DNA in the fossilized droppings — or coprolites — of cave hyenas proves to us! A find which allowed researchers at the University of Konstanz, in Germany, to reconstruct the mitochondrial genome of this species, which disappeared around 10,000 years ago under still mysterious circumstances. The mitochondrial genome is only transmitted by the mother, and allows us to trace the genetic thread back to the origin of species.
A major scientific advance
This major discovery, made by chance while scientists were seeking to identify the DNA of plants, should shed light on the origins of the split of woolly rhinoceroses into two groups: European and Siberian. It is all the more exceptional as it is the first time that scientists are faced with a genome from the European group. The cause: higher temperatures in Europe than in Siberian permafrost, which further degrade DNA. Added to this is technical prowess: to differentiate the genetic material of the woolly rhinoceros from that of the hyena that ate it and from everything that was in the latter’s stomach, scientists used, among other things , a DNA sequencer. The extract they were able to isolate was degraded. They compared it to other modern and ancient genomes in order to restore it.
Many promises lie dormant in fossilized droppings
Their analysis, published in the journal Biology Letters, reveals that woolly rhinos separated into two groups 450,000 years ago. In addition to this advance, our two dung, dated to the Middle Paleolithic (between 300,000 and 30,000 BCE), contain a myriad of other resources that might shed light on the environment in which the region’s Neanderthals lived. If the researchers are cautious in their conclusion, recalling that this is an isolated sample, their results still suggest that a wealth of information might be hidden in the coprolites, hitherto left aside by Science.
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