A really old rhino tooth has opened a new path toward understanding the tree of life — including, potentially, our own branch.
In September, researchers detailed in Nature how, using the tooth of a 1.77-million-year-old rhino from the Republic of Georgia, they were able to revise its family tree. The team’s success has implications far beyond rhino ancestry: It’s proof of concept that it’s possible to map out evolutionary relationships between species, with confidence and on a molecular level, without DNA.
