Discovered a 3-meter-tall monster living with ancient humans in the Gobi desert

Research just published on Frontiers in Earth Science Introducing Camelus knoblochi, an extinct camel with a size that would scare modern humans: up to 3 meters tall, weighing 1 ton.

And Mongolia is the place to hide the mystery of their “evaporation” 27,000 years ago.

This giant beast coexisted with the two ancient human species that once occupied this harsh land: the Neanderthals and the Denisovans, two species belonging to the same genus as Homo sapiens. known as skilled hunters.

According to Ancient Origins, a research team led by Dr. John W. Olsen, Executive Director of the Je Tsongkhapa Foundation for Archeology of Central and Inner Asia at the University of Arizona in Tucson (USA), followed clues from the above paintings. Prehistoric man cave wall in Mongolia, depicting a camel-like creature, with two humps but unusually large. Some paintings depict small humans trying to fight this “beast”.

They searched and analyzed 5 leg and foot bones of Camelus knoblochi, collected in Tsagaan Agui cave in Mongolia in 2021 alongside bones of wolf, cave hyena, Mongolian hyena, rhinoceros, horse, wild donkey, wild sheep…

Analysis shows that these are large but rather naive animals, living in the steppes, mountains and lowlands, not just in the desert like the Bactrian camel – its small modern relative.

It seems that Camelus knoblochi’s extinction was caused by poor adaptation to the desert biome and landscape, combined with extreme changes in climate 27,000 years ago.

At the same time, human hunting may also have accelerated the extinction of the giant camel, as there is no evidence that Neanderthals and Denisovans domesticated them, but there is evidence of them. ate them.

However, since these two species became extinct about 30,000-40,000 years ago, it is possible that the giant camel Camelus knoblochi lived a little longer, but nature ended up doing the rest of the work on the last few individuals. together.