Initial reports had indicated the 18-month-old was at least 10,000 years old, based upon the fact that that is about when the species went extinct, but subsequent testing has provided a better estimate, and an extra 24,000 years.
New timeline in hand, researchers now confirm that Sasha lived during the Karginsk interglacial period, The Siberian Times reports, when the climate was much warmer than it is in modern-day Yakutia.
While further study will look more closely at the baby rhino's death, thus far scientists continue to say Sasha likely died from drowning.
Researchers from the Academy of Sciences of Yakutia, where Sasha is kept, plan to share their research with other experts, including scientists at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who will try to sequence the animal's DNA so it can be compared with that of modern rhinos.
From Discovery News
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