When you think of rhinos, likely a few places come to mind.

Besides a zoo or safari park, you might find your thoughts conjuring up images of Africa or Southeast Asia.

But one place you probably wouldn’t associate with rhinos is North America.

And yet, a new study from researchers at the University of Cincinnati – recently published in the Nature journal Scientific Reports – has revealed that not only did a species of rhino once reside in North America, these now extinct species of the huge mammal also lived in massive herds.

Not only that, the research team uncovered new details about this rhino’s diet and movement, creating the most comprehensive picture ever of this long-forgotten beast.

Though the remains of over one hundred rhinos were discovered in Nebraska in 1971, this is the first time that scientists have truly uncovered some of the secrets about the life the species led in North America, around 12 million years ago.

Unlike the two-horned rhinos you might be more familiar with, this rhino species – known as Teleoceras major – had one horn, stubby legs, and a diet mainly comprising of grass.

Their skeletons were discovered at Nebraska’s Ashfall Fossil Beds State Historical Park, in an area where a watering hole once stood.

What took them down? The eruption of the Yellowstone supervolcano, and the enormous ash cloud that followed.

And according to the researchers, while the rhinos didn’t die immediately after the eruption – instead gradually suffocating from the ash they were breathing in – they did die in the area where they lived, meaning that this part of Nebraska was once their home.

To find this fascinating information, the researchers – led by the University of Cincinnati’s Clark Ward – explored evidence from the rhinos’ teeth, and compared the isotopes that derived from the food they ate to the soil it grew in.

The evidence suggested that the rhinos grazed in the local area, as Ward explained in a statement:

“By studying carbon in the animal, we can reconstruct carbon in the environment to understand what kinds of vegetation lived there. And strontium tells us where the animal was foraging because the ratio of isotopes is related to the soil and supporting bedrock.

We found they didn’t move very much. We didn’t find evidence for seasonal migration or any evidence of a response to the disaster.”

It is likely that the species’ stubby legs and round body would have prevented them from migrating too far – and they likely wouldn’t have been able to outrun the ash cloud, which travelled 700 miles across Nebraska, blanketing the landscape in a foot of ash, as Ward continued:

“That ash would have covered everything: the grass, leaves and water. The rhinos likely weren’t killed immediately like the people of Pompeii. Instead, it was much slower. They were breathing in the ash. And they likely starved to death.”

The sad truth is that this species of rhino would never again traverse the American landscape.

Yellowstone had a lot to answer for.

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