For the first time, CT scans of woolly rhinoceros jaws were performed in Siberia

Scientists at Novosibirsk State University (NSU) have studied the jaws of a woolly rhinoceros using a CT scanner for the first time. The study will make it possible to understand how the teeth of these ancient animals changed, and use the results to study modern endangered rhinos, the university's press service reported.

"Computed tomography of five fragments of the jaws of woolly rhinoceroses that lived in Southern Siberia during the Pleistocene epoch was performed by scientists from the Laboratory of Nuclear and Innovative Medicine. High—quality three-dimensional images of valuable finds allow paleontologists to understand how the teeth of these ancient animals changed and compare the data obtained on modern endangered rhinos," the NSU told TASS.

Dmitry Malikov, a senior researcher at the V.S. Sobolev Institute of Geology and Mineralogy, noted that the studied paleontological samples are fragments of the jaws of woolly rhinoceros cubs, whose age, according to assumptions, ranged from 3.5 to 5 years, and sometimes a little more. At this age, the animals changed their baby teeth to permanent ones.

According to Malikov, the researchers will try to determine at what age each individual died and compare these data with the developmental features of modern rhinoceroses in order to find out how similar the development of woolly rhinoceroses was to the development of modern species or whether there were differences between them.

It is specified that the geological age of the studied samples ranges from 120 to 15 thousand years, they were found in the south of the Krasnoyarsk Territory, in the Altai Territory and the Irkutsk region.

Scientists hope that the analysis of CT scans will provide new information about the ecology, evolution and development of these ancient Siberian animals. According to Malikov, such research can also help in preserving modern biological diversity.

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