Mammoth fauna, Yakutia, Russia
Woolly rhinoceros skull
Coelodonta antiquitatis
The skull of a woolly rhinoceros with a complete tooth row and restored horns — a major exhibit of the Ice Age fauna.
1 600 000 ₽ · In stock — Gimenei shopping centre
- Epoch
- Pleistocene
- Age
- 50–150 thousand years
- Origin
- Yakutia, Russia
- Size
- 130 × 82 × 35 cm
- Classification
- Coelodonta antiquitatis, the woolly rhinoceros
- Habitat
- The mammoth steppe of Yakutia
- Ref.
- R–0608
The Pleistocene mammoth steppe rested on a few large herbivores. The second largest after the mammoth was the woolly rhinoceros Coelodonta antiquitatis — an emblem of glacial Eurasia.
Its front horn grew to a metre and served as a shovel: with it the beast raked away the snow to reach the frozen grass. The horn is composed of keratin and survives in sediments far less well than bone.
This skull has retained a complete tooth row, while both horns have been restored by conservators — this is stated in the exhibit passport. Dimensions: 130 × 82 × 35 centimetres.
The specimen is between fifty and a hundred and fifty thousand years old: the bone has outlived several glaciations.
In life
The head of a woolly rhinoceros at the same angle as the skull: two horns, dense hair. Winter steppe.