Scientists have identified an extinct ice-age bovine from DNA recovered in Siberia's Denisova Cave. The animal, informally dubbed "yak X", was a distant relative of modern yaks that vanished around 27,000 to 30,000 years ago.

The team, including researchers Love Dalen and Alexandre Gilardet, sequenced 20 ancient genomes spanning 200,000 years. The DNA shows the lineage split from yaks about 400,000 years ago and separated fully around 250,000 years ago, roaming the Altai-Sayan region.

The study, published in Current Biology, suggests the animal disappeared as the climate shifted at the end of the last ice age — though the exact cause remains unclear. Its bones had been found before, but only DNA revealed it was a distinct species.

Denisova Cave keeps rewriting prehistory: it previously yielded the Denisovan humans. Each new genome adds detail to a lost world of giant mammals that once ruled Siberia, and researchers hope further DNA work will reveal how this bovine coped with ice-age extremes.

Sources: newscientist.com; popsci.com.