Extinct yak relative discovered from DNA in Denisova cave
· New Scientist
A newly identified species of bovine, currently known only as yak X, was probably hunted by ancient humans including Neanderthals, Denisovans and our own species, say the researchers who discovered it.
“It’s not every day that one discovers a previously unknown extinct megafaunal species,” says Love Dalén at Stockholm University, Sweden.
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He and his colleagues began studying bone fragments recovered from Denisova cave, in the foothills of the Altai mountains in Siberia, Russia, in the hope of learning about bison evolution. The cave is most famous as the place where the mysterious Denisovans were first identified from a finger bone found there.
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if( window?.adverts?.addToArray ) { window.adverts.addToArray( { "pos": "mid-article-slot" } ); }“But it turned out that nearly all bone fragments in the cave had DNA that didn’t match any living bovine species, nor did it match the extinct steppe bison or aurochs,” says Dalén.
The team was given access to hundreds of tiny bone fragments from the cave and also analysed material from three other nearby sites and one near the Ural mountains, says Alexandre Gilardet, also at Stockholm University. From these, the researchers were able to construct genomes from 20 individuals.
A bone fragments from which researchers obtained a genome of yak XDr Mário VicenteThe species seems to have diverged from the wild yak (Bos mutus) around 400,000 years ago. By 250,000 years it appears to have become genetically isolated and then extinct by around 30,000 years ago.
The divergence time is similar to that between polar bears (Ursus maritimus) and brown bears (Ursus arctos), says Dalén.
This means yak X was probably quite a different animal, just as American and European bison are no longer the same species.
But until further work is complete, including on other remains that may have been previously misidentified, the team has no idea what unique traits the new species may have had.
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“We suspect that yak X might actually correspond to yak-like remains that have been [previously] described by Russian palaeontologists as a subspecies of the Himalayan yak,” says Dalén.
All of the bones found so far are much lower in elevation than areas in the Tibetan Plateau that are the native range of modern yaks. This means that yak X may have been less adapted to extreme mountain environments, says Jonas Oppenheimer, also at Stockholm University.
There is, so far, no direct evidence of yak X being hunted by different human species, but it is likely that Denisovans, as well as Neanderthals, modern humans and large carnivores, such as hyenas and lions, targeted them as prey, says Dalén. “Our results show that yak X was present in the region for more than 200,000 years, and they will likely have had first-hand experience of Denisovans, Neanderthals and modern humans coming and going.”
Journal Reference:Current Biology DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2026.09.043