The ‘Siberian unicorn’ once roamed among humans, surviving in eastern Europe and western Asia until at least 39,000 years ago, around the same time as Neanderthals and early modern humans.

An extinct giant rhino, sometimes described as a “Siberian unicorn,” lived on the planet much longer than scientists previously believed, new research shows.

A study published Monday in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution says the furry creature once roamed among humans, surviving in Eastern Europe and Western Asia until at least 39,000 years ago — roughly the same time as Neanderthals and early modern humans.

The report’s authors have not responded to a request for comment.

The latest findings used radiocarbon dating and genetic analysis on 23 rhino specimens to reveal the life of the mysterious 3.8-tonne Elasmotherium sibiricum, previously thought to have been extinct for around 200,000 years.

The study’s authors suggest that the “Siberian unicorn,” which is believed to have lived in present-day Russia and had a range that extended into parts of Mongolia, northern China and Kazakhstan, became extinct because of environmental changes that affected the types of grasses and herbs it used to eat, they wrote in The Conversation.

The animal, whose horn could measure up to a meter in length, found it difficult to give up a grass-based diet, the authors wrote.

“Relatives like the woolly rhino had always eaten a more balanced variety of plants and were much less affected by a change in habitat,” they wrote.

They added that humans were not the cause of their extinction.

“In addition to this, Elasmotherium’s persistently restricted geographic range (also likely linked to its specialized habitat), as well as its low population size and slow reproductive rate associated with its large body size, would have predisposed it to extinction in the face of environmental change,” the authors wrote in the study.

Scientists say the loss of the Siberian unicorn provides a useful case study “showing the poor resilience of rhinos to environmental change.”