Scientists dissect 3,500-year-old bear found in Siberia – 02/23/2023 – Science

Scientists have necropsied a brown bear that has remained almost perfectly preserved in the frozen forests of eastern Siberia for 3,500 years. She was discovered by reindeer herders on a desert island in the Arctic.

“This find is absolutely unique: the complete carcass of an ancient brown bear,” said Maxim Cheprasov, head of laboratory at the Lazarev Mammoth Museum Laboratory at North-Eastern Federal University in Yakutsk, eastern Siberia.

The bear was found by reindeer herders in 2020, poking out of the permafrost on Bolshoy Lyakhovsky Island, part of the New Siberian archipelago, about 4,600km east of Moscow.

Because it was found east of the Bolshoy Etherican River, it was named the Etherican brown bear.

The extreme temperatures helped preserve the bear’s soft tissues for 3,460 years, as well as remnants of its final meals, bird feathers and plants. The bear is described as being 1.55 meters tall and almost 78 kg.

“For the first time, a carcass with soft tissue has fallen into the hands of scientists, giving us the opportunity to study the internal organs and examine the brain,” said Cheprasov.

The scientific team in Siberia cut through the bear’s tough skin, allowing scientists to examine its brain, internal organs and perform a range of cellular, microbiological, virological and genetic studies.

They also cut into his skull, using a vacuum to suck dust from the skull bone, before extracting his brain.

“Genetic analysis showed that the bear does not differ in mitochondrial DNA from the modern bear of northeastern Russia,” said Cheprasov.

He said the bear was probably around 2-3 years old. She died of a spinal injury.