Researchers consider they’ve discovered doable proof that polar bears lived in Scotland over the last ice age.
Scientists beforehand suspected a number of the stays discovered deep in Inchnadamph’s historic Bone Caves belonged to the animals.
Experts from National Museums Scotland and universities of Aberdeen and Edinburgh re-evaluated fossils collected from the realm of limestone cliffs in Assynt.
They mentioned their evaluation of three samples recommended they belonged to bears from 30,000 to 50,000 years in the past with diets made up virtually fully of seafood – similar to right this moment’s polar bears.
The samples had beforehand been recognized as brown bears.
Advancements within the chemical examine of bones and enamel allowed researchers to re-examine the stays.
Bones of different animals now extinct in Scotland have additionally been recovered from the system of caves through the years – together with lemming, wild horses, lynx and wolf.
Prof Kate Britton, from the University of Aberdeen, mentioned: “We have recognized a number of samples which stick out like a sore thumb each from the diets of different bears residing in Scotland hundreds of years in the past and from what we might anticipate of right this moment’s brown bears.
“Instead of consuming the meat of land-based animals, vegetation, or perhaps a little salmon, like up to date brown bears, these bears seem to have lived virtually completely on seafood.”
Prof Britton mentioned it may imply the samples are of a subspecies of brown bear, however added it was additionally doable they have been of polar bears.
The analysis has been printed in scientific journal Annales Zoologici Fennici.
Dr Andrew Kitchener, of National Museums Scotland – the place the bear fossils are held – mentioned polar and brown bear habitats might have overlapped hundreds of years in the past as they do right this moment.
He added: “It presents fascinating questions in regards to the ancestry of bears that later roamed our islands.”
The group is now conducting DNA evaluation of the samples with collaborators in Sweden to find out the species of the bears.
