Science & Nature

Polar bears in Scotland?

By team ⋅ March 29, 2008 ⋅  Email this post ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment

The Times, 8 March

Scientists are carrying out a DNA test on what may be the only polar bear remains ever discovered in Britain. The skull, found in caves in the Highlands in the 1920s, is now displayed at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh. Genetics experts from Trinity College, Dublin will analyse the skull in the hope of unlocking secrets of its environment, diet and behaviour 18,000 years ago, at the peak of the last Ice Age.

Ceiridwen Edwards, a researcher at Trinity College’s Smurfit Institute of Genetics, said she believed the tests would show that the animal had a terrestrial diet, living on reindeer rather than seals. ‘That raises questions about why the diet of polar bears has since changed’, said Edwards. Radiocarbon dating has ruled out the possibility of the skull being a cave bear or brown bear.

The caves, at Inchnadamph in Assynt, contained other animal remains, including arctic fox, wolf, reindeer, northern lynx and even four humans who lived up to 4,700 years ago.