First the good news: There really once were living, breathing "unicorns" walking around on Earth -- specifically, in what is now Kazakhstan. The bad news: They weren't the cute, cuddly, magical creatures that all children (and a lot of adults) love and cherish, like the one below. 
 
 Wikimedia Commons An illustration of a fictional unicorn. 
 
 Researchers from Tomsk State University in Russia recently analyzed the well-preserved skull fossils of an Elasmotherium sibiricum, also known as the "Siberian unicorn," that was unearthed in the Pavlodar region of Kazakhstan. 
 
 Scientists previously thought the species went extinct some 350,000 years ago. But based on the new analysis and radiocarbon dating, it seems the massive horned mammals may have endured for hundreds of thousands of years longer than originally thought. 
 
 Google Maps A map of Pavlodar, Kazakhstan. 
 
 When researchers analyzed the E. sibiricum fossils, they found them to be only 29,000 years old, according to findings published in the latest issue of the American Journal of Applied Sciences. 
 
 This suggests the creature may have been around at the same time as humans, since many paleoanthropologists agree that modern humans evolved in Africa about 200,000 years ago. 
 
 (Story continues below image.) 
 
 Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain/Rashevsky, under supervision of A.F. Brant The first published artistic restoration of Elasmotherium sibiricum, in 1878. 
 
 E. sibiricum looked more like a shaggy rhinoceros than a horse. The animals are believed to have stood about six feet tall and 15 feet long, and weighed around four tons. Their horns likely were about seven feet long, according to National Geographic. ||||| EurekAlert! Editorial Update: A comment regarding the reliability of the radiocarbon dating of the Siberian 'unicorn' described in this release was submitted by Queen's University Belfast researchers who performed the analysis and accepted by the American Journal of Applied Sciences on May 4, 2016: 
 
 Although our laboratory would not normally proceed with analysis for low collagen yield samples, because there was no other sample available and the whole bone nitrogen content and percent carbon were suitable, we did provide the date (UBA30522) but cautioned the authors that it should not be considered reliable. Analysis of further specimens is necessary before this claim is validated. 
 
 The abstract of the comment is available here and the full comment is available here. (Update issued Aug. 13, 2018) 
 
 The beautiful title "Siberian unicorn" belongs to Elasmotherium sibiricum - an elasmotherium Siberian rhinoceros, which as previously thought became extinct 350,000 years ago. Nowadays the researchers of Tomsk State University (TSU) figured out that the "unicorn" found his last refuge "only" 29,000 years ago in Kazakhstan. The article, describing the new location of the fossil mammals in the Pavlodar Irtysh, was published in February 2016 in the American Journal of Applied Science. 
 
 "Most likely, in the south of Western Siberia it was a refúgium, where this rhino had preserved the longest in comparison with the rest of its range. There is another option that it could migrate and dwell for a while on the more southern areas," said Andrey Shpanski, a paleontologist at TSU. These conclusions were made due to research of the rhinocero's skull, found near Kozhamzhar village in Pavlodar region (Kazakhstan). The skull is well preserved: there are some cracks but no trace of pelletization, gnawing, and exfoliation. The fossils of the "unicorn" were examined by radiocarbon AMS-method analysis in the laboratory 14CHRONO Centre for Climate, the Environment, and Chronology (School of Geography, Archaeology and Palaeoecology; Queen's University Belfast; Belfast, UK). It turned out that the skull belonged to the animals that died 29,000 years ago. "Most likely, it was a very large male of very large individual age (teeth not preserved). The dimensions of this rhino today are the biggest of those described in the literature, and the proportion are typical," said the University's scientist. 
 
 Elasmotherium sibiricum supposed to be extinct about 350,000 years ago. Its habitat was the vast territory from the Don River to the east of modern Kazakhstan. Overview Elasmotherium residue findings in the Pavlodar Irtysh showed quite a long existence of these rhinos in the southeast of the West Siberian Plain. An extinction period of the "unicorn" can now be compared with the boundary between Kargin thermochron and Sartan cryochron of late pleistocene (boundary of MIS 3 and 2) in Western Siberia. These data are pushing us for mass radiocarbon studies of mammalian remains that were previously known as ancient and extinct more than 50-100,000 years ago. "Our research makes adjustments in the understanding of the environmental conditions in the geologic time in general. Understanding of the past allows us to make more accurate predictions about natural processes in the near future: it also concerns climate change," summed up Shpanski. 
 
 ### ||||| Researchers working in Kazakhstan report a new fossil site called the Kozhamzhar Locality, which contains the remains of massive mammals including mammoths, steppe elephants, prehistoric bison, and a giant rhinoceros called Elasmotherium sibiricum – which may have inspired the legend of the unicorn. According to findings published in American Journal of Applied Sciences, radiocarbon dating of the extinct rhino bones suggests the species died off tens (or even hundreds) of thousands of years later than we thought. 
 
 Tomsk State University’s Andrei Shpansky and colleagues studied about 20 fossilized mammal teeth and bones uncovered from an 8-kilometer (5-mile) section of the left bank of the Irtysh River near Kozhamzhar in the Pavlodar Priirtysh Region of Kazakhstan. Residents of Kozhamzhar village have previously found bone fragments in the downstream outcrop, part of which has already been washed away. In fact, the fossils studied here were collected by locals in the late 1980s and brought to the Museum of Nature at Pavlodar State Pedagogical Institute in 2010. 
 
 Additionally, the team analyzed the Elasmotherium skull using AMS radiocarbon dating. This yielded a young age of 26,038 (plus or minus 356) years before present, with a calibration age ranging from 28,985 to 27,490 BCE. Not only are these Elasmotherium skulls bigger than that of eastern European elasmotheriums, these giant rhinos also existed for longer in the southeast of the West Siberian Plain. ||||| The remote and icy north of the Yakutia Republic in Siberia has become well-known for the discovery of remains of Ice Age mammals within its thick permafrost deposits. 
 
 In some cases, entire buried carcasses that have been shrunken and desiccated down to a natural mummified state have been dug up. 
 
 Such finds can help scientists answer key questions about extinct species, the conditions in which they lived and their relationships to other species including animals alive today. 
 
 Here are four mummies that have given us hints about what it was like to live through the Ice Age. 
 
 The Yukagir bison 
 
 Standing 2 metres tall at the shoulders with large horns curving outwards at the tip, the steppe bison (Bison priscus) must have been a formidable foe for Ice Age human hunters. 
 
 The bison was found in a sleeping pose with no signs of injury 
 
 Members of the Yukagir tribal community discovered the remarkably well-preserved and complete remains of a male steppe bison in Yakutia in August 2011. It is believed to be in better condition than the other two known complete specimens. Radiocarbon dating of horn and hair samples suggests it lived around 10,500 years ago. 
 
 Gennady Boeskorov of the Russian Academy of Sciences, in Yakutsk and his colleagues estimate the bull weighed in at 500-600 kilograms and was 1.7m tall at the shoulder blades. It was found in a sleeping pose with no signs of injury, so is believed to have died of natural causes. Pollen discovered in its stomach show it ate grasses and wild herbs. DNA analysis will help scientists understand the relationships between different species of ancient bison and modern North America bison. 
 
 The steppe bison lived in northern Europe, Asia and North America, mostly during the Pleistocene between two million and 11,700 years ago. It was a little larger than today's American bison, with bigger horns and a second hump on its back. Several examples of Stone Age cave art feature the species, including a scene at Villars in France in which a wounded bison is goring a fallen hunter. 
 
 The Kolyma woolly rhinoceros 
 
 Woolly rhino remains have been discovered as far west as the British Isles and as far east as the Chukotka Peninsula, the eastern tip of Siberia. They are believed to have been one of Eurasia's most abundant large mammals. However, we have only found the remains of a handful. 
 
 The rhino's short legs may have struggled with an increase in deep snow 
 
 In 2007, gold miners discovered the well-preserved frozen remains of a female woolly rhino at the opening of a gold mine in Yakutia. 
 
 Boeskorov, who studied the mummified carcass, estimated it is likely to have weighed around 1.5 tons. The rhino had thick brown fur and skin, a short, fur-covered tail and narrow ears of the same shape as those depicted in cave paintings. It lived around 39,000 years ago. 
 
 While the rhino was well-adapted for icy cold conditions, its short legs may have struggled with an increase in deep snow caused by the higher temperatures of the late Pleistocene and early Holocene, Boeskorov believes. 
 
 The Selerikan pony 
 
 Gold miners also came across two legs and a tail belonging to a mummified pony sticking through the roof of a tunnel they were digging nine metres below frozen ground near the upper Indigirka River, in Yakutia, in 1968. Experts from the Zoological Institute in St Petersburg were able to recover most of the body except the head. 
 
 It was found to be a Przewalski’s horse (Equus przewalskii), a wild horse only nowadays found in Mongolia. 
 
 Known as the Selerikan pony, the mature stallion lived between 35,000 and 39,000 years ago, and probably died at the age of seven or eight. 
 
 Its gastrointestinal tract was full, suggesting it died a quick death. Stomach content analysis identified grasses, sedge, herbs and woody plants as being part of its diet. The position in which the carcass was found, with its hind legs pointing down and more horizontal forelegs, led scientists to conclude the pony had died after becoming stuck in a bog. 
 
 The Yuka mammoth 
 
 Here's an idea: some ancient human hunters used lions to catch wild animals before moving in to claim their prey. There is no proof, but there is some circumstantial evidence, in the form of marks on the body of a young female mammoth. 
 
 A long straight cut and marks in a "repeating ladder pattern" could have been made by human tools 
 
 Yukagir tribe members found the corpse on the coast of an area called Oyagossky Yar in Yakutia in 2009. Dubbed Yuka after its finders, its skin and some of its strawberry-blonde fur are well-preserved, as are a lot of mummified muscles and ligaments. Unusually, its trunk is intact. 
 
 Research suggests the animal was 8 to 10 years old when it died, stood no more than 165cm tall at the shoulders, and lived 39,000 years ago. Before the discovery, nobody knew what mammoths were like at this stage of development. The researchers were surprised to see the beginnings of tusks that had not yet broken through the skin. 
 
 The markings are unlike any made by any known stone tools 
 
 Yuka had unhealed cuts and scratches that suggest it was attacked by a large predator, probably a cave lion, shortly before its death. However, they are thought not to have penetrated enough to have caused its death. Meanwhile, a long straight cut and marks in a "repeating ladder pattern" could have been made by human tools. 
 
 So Daniel Fisher of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor has suggested the human-like marks were made by human hunters who had moved lions off a kill. There is precedent: members of the Dorobo tribe in Kenya still get meat by stealing kills from lions. 
 
 If the marks are confirmed to have been made by hunters, it would be the first evidence of interaction between ancient humans and mammoths in this part of the world. However, the markings are unlike any made by any known stone age tools, so other researchers think they may have been made more recently. ||||| Scientists know woolly mammoth bones when they see them, and that's a good thing. In the US alone, every year or two brings the discovery of mammoth bones uncovered by the construction of a subway, stadium, or parking lot. They don't stay mysteries for long. 
 
 But imagine it's 100 or 200 or 500 years ago, and you've just discovered the fossilized bones of a humongous creature with a 10-foot skull. 
 
 What would you think it was? A human giant from biblical times? You might. Or perhaps you'd look at the gaping hole in the front of the skull and think: Eek, Cyclops! Or a unicorn. Or, if you're extra-creative, a sea monster that somehow ended up on land (double eek!). 
 
 In his new book Discovering the Mammoth: A Tale of Giants, Unicorns, Ivory, and the Birth of a New Science, technical writer and self-described mammoth enthusiast John McKay digs deep into human history to explore how we tackled the perplexing mystery of these extraordinary fossils. 
 
 "Everybody has their own way of looking at the world," McKay says, "but almost everywhere, people had no problem believing these were real animals or monsters that once lived." 
 
 In an interview with the Monitor, McKay talks about the evolving fossil theories, the challenges that the bones posed to faith, and what this all says about the human drive to understand. 
 
 Q: So what was a woolly mammoth? A kind of prehistoric giant hairy elephant? 
 
 That's pretty much what it is. They're related to elephants, part of a big and complex family tree. 
 
 As they moved into colder areas, they got progressively stockier and hairier. They were still running around after the pyramids were built, and the final ones to go extinct were on an island north of Siberia. They seem to have mostly died from inbreeding. They were terribly inbred and started to develop genetic problems. 
 
 Q: How did people come to think these bones were of giant humans? 
 
 They're trying to make sense of something that has no analog in the world around them because they hadn't seen elephants yet. They'd know what the typical big animals in their area are like, and they'd notice that these aren't like any of the animals they hunt or see. 
 
 They'd find a femur or a thigh bone and start laying the bones out: Here's the legs, the hips, the ribs and 5-fingered feet that look like human hands. They'd put it all together and make it into a human. 
 
 Q: Sometimes they'd assume these were giant humans from the bible. But they'd also come up with out-there ideas like the Cyclops. How did they figure that? 
 
 If you look at an elephant's skull, there's this giant opening in the front for the trunk. It looks like a giant eyehole, so they developed the Cyclops idea. And the tusks looked like fangs, perfect for a monster. 
 
 Q: How did some Europeans figure that the bones weren't from actual animals? 
 
 Some people in the medieval and early modern periods thought these were just rocks that resembled bones. There was a little bit of mysticism mixed in it too, the belief that there were forces within the earth that could cause something to take on the appearance of something else. 
 
 Q: How did the sea monster theory develop? 
 
 There was a belief that for every animal on the land, there was an equivalent animal in the sea: There were sea cows, sea horses, sea dogs. 
 
 Q: How did mammoth fossils challenge religion? 
 
 There was an idea that goes all the way back to Aristotle of the sacred chain of being: Everything in God's creation is neatly ranked, there's a place for everything, everything is in its place, because God is perfect. 
 
 Whatever God creates will also be perfect because there's no room for superfluous parts. Extinction would be somewhat sacrilegious, almost heretical. God didn't make things without a purpose. 
 
 Thanks to the fossils, people also came to the conclusion that the past had taken more time than the standard biblical chronology. There needed to be more time for all of these things to happen. That made a lot of religious authorities uncomfortable. 
 
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 Q: What can we learn from your book about the human desire to solve mysteries? 
 
 It's human nature. We're homo sapiens, we're a smart animal, but it would really be better to call us a curious animal. It's not enough to just accept things as they are. We want to make integrated sense out of them.
– Unicorns are real, and they're a lot younger than we thought. Researchers from Russia's Tomsk State University were digging at a fossil site in Kazakhstan when they found bones belonging to the Elasmotherium sibiricum, otherwise known as the "Siberian unicorn," Huffington Post reports. According to IFL Science, this ancient giant rhinoceros, which has a horn protruding from the middle of its head, is thought to be the basis for modern tales of unicorns. The Siberian unicorn is believed to have been about 20 feet long with a 7-foot horn, National Geographic reports. But it wasn't the existence of Elasmotherium sibiricum that caught researchers off guard; it was the age of the bones. Radiocarbon dating found one of the skulls to be only about 29,000 years old, according to a press release. Scientists had long believed the Siberian unicorn went extinct 350,000 years ago. If the team's research—which was published in the American Journal of Applied Sciences—holds up, it means unicorns and humans walked the Earth at the same time, though in different places. Humans are believed to have evolved in Africa about 200,000 years ago. (A unicorn is convincing people to squat to poop.)