Scientists study 3,500-year-old bear found in Siberian permafrost

A 3,500-year-old bear, originally found in eastern Siberia in 2020, has now undergone a necropsy by a team of scientists.

It marks the first time that a carcass with soft tissue this old and this well-preserved has been able to be studied.

Reindeer herders were the first to spot the female bear jutting out from a piece of permafrost on Bolshoy Lyakhovsky Island, part of the New Siberian archipelago, reports NBC News.

“This find is absolutely unique: the complete carcass of an ancient brown bear,” said Maxim Cheprasov, laboratory chief at the Lazarev Mammoth Museum Laboratory in eastern Siberia.

Because the bear was found slightly east of the Bolshoy Etherican River, it has now been dubbed the “Etherican brown bear.”

The extreme temperatures on the island helped preserve the bear’s soft tissue as well as the items it consumed prior to its death: bird feathers and plants.

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

In addition, they are conducting a host of cellular, microbiological, virological and genetic studies.

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

But scientists have been struggling to figure out how the Etherican brown bear ended up on the island in the first place, which is divided from the mainland by a 31-mile strait.

It may have crossed over ice, it might have managed to swim over, or the island might still have been part of the mainland some time ago.