Villagers in China's far northeast were left terrified when a Siberian tiger pounced on a field worker and attacked a car near the remote border with Russia, state media reported.

The male juvenile tiger was first spotted Friday roaming close to Linhu village in Heilongjiang province, reported Shanghai-based news outlet The Paper, citing local police.

"It turned in the direction of two villagers working in the field," said Wang Xue, who had driven to the site to pick up a relative.

"I shouted at them to run, but the tiger then ran straight in my direction," Wang was quoted as saying by the Beijing News in a Sunday video.

"In two or three seconds, it ran over and pounced on my car, clawing at it with its paws."

The car's exterior was heavily scratched and the back passenger window shattered.

"I was terrified, and am still suffering from heart issues," said Wang.

Neither of the two passengers inside the car was hurt.

Video footage also showed the tiger pouncing on one villager working in the field, before running off. The report said the worker suffered minor injuries.

Police managed to eventually corner and subdue the animal with tranquiliser darts.

According to a Monday report published by the Heilongjiang Forestry Bureau, the big cat was put into a 45-day disease quarantine at the Hengdaohezi Feline Breeding Centre in Mudanjiang city.

Siberian tigers are native to Russia and parts of northeastern China. There are estimated to be fewer than 500 left in the wild due to poaching, with fewer than 30 thought to be in China, according to the state newspaper Global Times.

Conservationists in China and Russia have made efforts to protect the species, but it is rare for tigers to enter human settlements.

Genome sequences reveal genetic diversity in Sumatran rhinoceros
 Washington DC (UPI) Apr 26, 2021 –

With fewer than 100 animals remaining in the wild, the Sumatran rhinoceros is one of the most endangered mammals on the planet.

Newly acquired genome sequencing data has offered the rhino, and the people trying to save them, a bit of good news – scientists found little evidence of inbreeding among the Sumatran rhinos that remain.

According to the data, published Monday in the journal Nature Communications, the shrinking Sumatran rhinoceros population still hosts a surprisingly amount of genetic diversity.

As previous studies have revealed, habitat fragmentation and population declines can lead to declines in genetic diversity.

To measure the genetic health of Sumatran rhinos, scientists sequenced the genomes of 16 rhinos, most from present-day populations in Borneo and Sumatra.

Researchers also sequenced the genomes of a few specimens from a recently extinguished Malaysian population, as well as a few other historical specimens.

"To our surprise, we found relatively low inbreeding levels and high genetic diversity in the present-day populations on Borneo and Sumatra," study co-author Johanna von Seth, doctoral student at the Center for Palaeogenetics at Stockholm University in Sweden, said in a news release.

While genomic data collected from the recently disappeared Malaysian rhinos showed declining genetic diversity, the genomes of Borneo and Sumatra rhinos revealed genetic diversity levels on par with those measured among historic specimens.

Scientists suspect the Sumatran rhinoceros' population declines are so recent that they haven't yet had an effect on genetic health.

That's good news for conservationists. The genetic health is there to be preserved.

However, scientists did find increases in the prevalence of a handful of potentially harmful genetic mutations. If inbreeding rates increase, these mutations could proliferate, yielding population-wide health problems.

"Unless the populations start increasing in size, there is a high risk that inbreeding levels will start rising, and consequently that genetic diseases will become more common," said co-author Nicolas Dussex, postdoctoral researcher at the Center for Palaeogenetics.

In addition to protecting habitat in order to grow the local Sumatran rhino populations, researchers suggest rhinos from the two islands, Borneo and Sumatra, could be transplanted to help maintain genetic diversity among the two groups. Artificial insemination could offer similar benefits.

Researchers hope their work will inspire other conservation scientists to use genomic sequencing to inform species protection efforts.