A perfectly preserved ice mummy of a cave bear has been discovered in the permafrost of the remote Bolshoy Lyakhovsky Island in the New Siberian Islands, Northern Russia.
Reindeer herders passing by discovered the entire cave bear remains, with soft tissues preserved and estimated to be 39,000 years old, embedded in the permanently frozen soil. The herders who discovered the remains turned over the find to a research team from the North-Eastern Federal University (NEFU) in Yakutsk, one of Russia's federal universities and is the leader in ice-age mammal studies.
Cave bears went extinct 15,000 years ago. Until now, our knowledge about them has been largely limited to studies of their bones and teeth. This adult bear carcass, discovered by a reindeer herder on an Arctic Island, still has its organs intact! https://t.co/r4SZTWvyGL — Dr. Jacquelyn Gill (@JacquelynGill) September 12, 2020
Perfectly Preserved - Even The Nose!
Preliminary analysis of the preserved "ice mummy" places the Siberian cave bear to at least the age of the Karginsky interglacial - a warm interval period in the Siberian region between 39,000 to 22,000 years ago.
"It is necessary to carry out radiocarbon analysis to determine the precise age of the bear," explained Maxim Cheprasov, from Yakutsk's Mammoth Museum laboratory.
In a news release from the NEFU - Yakutsk, Lena Grigorieva, lead researcher from the International Centre for Collective Use of Molecular Paleontology at the NEFU's Institute of Applied Ecology of the North, said of the discovery: "Today this is the first and only find of its kind - a whole bear carcass with soft tissues." She further described the remains as being completely preserved, all internal organs in place - even the bear's nose.
HUGELY EXCITING! A cave bear carcass has been recovered from the permafrost on an Arctic island - "the first and only find of its kind." The preservation is remarkable; all internal organs are present. And that nose! Wonderful NEFU https://t.co/U6nayPIsIp pic.twitter.com/gzggoCyHmA — The Ice Age ️ (@Jamie_Woodward_) September 12, 2020
RELATED: Hikers Discover Unique Goat-Antelope Remains in the Italian Alps
According to the federal university, the find is of great importance, especially since previous cave bear discoveries were only limited to bones and skulls. Also, other Russian and foreign researchers will be invited by the NEFU to also collaborate on the study.
Grigorieva also added that they are planning to conduct a study on the cave bear in a similar scale as the Maly Lyakhovsky mammoth - the partial discovery of the carcass of a wooly mammoth back in 2012 which lead to breakthroughs in understanding relating anatomical, morphological, and biological history information from the Pleistocene period. The large-scale study was also led by scientists from the Institute of Applied Ecology of the North, North-Eastern Federal University, Yakutsk, in Russia.
Cave Bears From the Age of the Karginsky Interglacial
Cave bears (Ursus spelaeus) is a prehistoric species of bears that lived in parts of what is now Europe and Asia during the Pleistocene period. The NEFU press release notes that the U. spelaeus became extinct sometime in the Late Plesitocene period, about 15,000 years ago.
The skeleton for these prehistoric bears was first described by Johann Friederich Esper in his 1774 book "Newly Discovered Zoolites of Unknown Four-Footed Animals." Skeletal remains of cave bears have been previously discovered across caves in Central Europe. In 1966, a massive discovery - one complete skeleton, five complete skulls, and 18 other bones - were discovered inside Jaskinia Niedźwiedzia in Poland.
Almost seventeen years later, in 1983, about 140 cave bear skeletons were found in the "Bears' Cave" in Romania. The recent find in the Bolshoy Lyakhovsky Island, however, was the first discovery of a completely preserved specimen.
RELATED: Melting Permafrost Could Mean Return of Ancient Diseases
Check out more news and information on Bears in Science Times.
