Rhino horn is compacted keratin and rarely fossilises, but frozen Siberian carcasses have preserved several woolly rhinoceros horns intact. The front horn could exceed a metre in length and, unlike the roughly conical horn of living rhinos, was compressed laterally into a blade-like form.
Several of these horns show abrasion concentrated on the anterior surface. That is where wear would accumulate if the animal swung its head from side to side across the ground, and the interpretation as snow clearing fits an animal feeding on steppe grasses through Arctic winters. Stomach contents from frozen specimens confirm a diet dominated by grasses and herbs.
The species disappeared in the late Pleistocene, with most reliable dates falling around fourteen thousand years ago. Genomic work on Siberian specimens found no clear sign of a long population decline before the end, which points attention towards rapid warming and the collapse of the steppe vegetation rather than a slow squeeze by hunting.