2026年9月10日，瑞典斯德哥尔摩古遗传学中心Raquel Teixeira等科学家在《科学》（Science）发表研究，揭示了披毛犀的温带欧亚起源。

披毛犀是冰河时期著名的巨型动物物种，关于其起源以及对过去冰期旋回的响应，人们所知有限。研究人员对来自欧亚大陆更新世标本的29个线粒体基因组和14个核基因组进行了测序，并对该物种过去50万年的栖息地进行了建模。研究结果表明，其母系遗传多样性主要于约46万至42万年前在一次漫长的冰期-间冰期过渡期间在温带欧亚演化。研究人员发现，一个约17万年前的东亚个体是所有后来种群的祖先，表明东亚是晚更新世祖先的一个可能起源地。他们还确定阿尔泰地区是一个主要的气候避难所。这些发现凸显了温带欧亚在披毛犀演化以及适应寒冷的巨型动物多样化中的关键作用。

附：英文原文

Title: Paleogenomics and habitat modeling reveal temperate Eurasian origins of woolly rhinoceroses

Author: Raquel Teixeira, Alexandre Gilardet, Maxim Kozlikin, Sergey Vasiliev, Stanislav Medvedev, Sergei Kruskop, Vera Basova, Katerina Douka, Michael Shunkov, Alexandra Buzhilova, Love Dalén

Issue&Volume: 2026-09-10

Abstract: The woolly rhinoceros was a prominent Ice Age megafaunal species, and there is limited knowledge regarding its origin and responses to past glacial cycles. We sequenced 29 mitochondrial and 14 nuclear genomes from Pleistocene specimens across Eurasia and modeled the species’ habitats over the past 500,000 years. Our results suggest that its maternal genetic diversity mainly evolved in temperate Eurasia around 460 thousand to 420 thousand years ago during a prolonged glacial-interglacial transition. We found that a ~170-thousand-year-old East Asian individual was ancestral to all later populations, indicating East Asia as one possible origin of Late Pleistocene ancestry. We also identified the Altai region as a major climatic refugium. These findings highlight the crucial role of temperate Eurasia in the evolution of woolly rhinoceroses and the diversification of cold-adapted megafauna.

DOI: 10.1126/science.aed0430

Source: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aed0430