Enlarge / Portion of a reproduction of cave paintings in France, showing rhinos (among other species). (credit: JEFF PACHOUD) For most people, an extinct species is an abstraction, a set of bones they might have seen on display in a museum. For Gennady Boeskorov, they are things he has interacted with directly, studying their fur, their skin, their internal organs—experiencing these animals much as they existed thousands of years ago.