New evidence may suggest that polar bears once roamed Scotland during the last ice age.
As per BBC, scientists had earlier speculated that some of the remains discovered deep within Inchnadamph’s ancient Bone Caves belonged to these animals.
Upon examining, these samples had previously been identified as brown bears.
Researchers from National Museums Scotland, along with researchers from the universities of Aberdeen and Edinburgh, then re-examined fossils gathered from the limestone cliffs in Assynt.
Recent progress in the chemical analysis of bones and teeth allowed researchers to re-examine the remains.
The study published in the scientific journal Annales Zoologici Fennici revealed that three samples indicated the remains likely belonged to bears, dating back 30,000 to 50,000 years, with diets primarily made up of seafood, much like today’s polar bears.
Prof Kate Britton, from the University of Aberdeen, said in a statement, "We have identified several samples which stick out like a sore thumb both from the diets of other bears living in Scotland thousands of years ago and from what we'd expect of today's brown bears.”
The statement added, “Instead of consuming the meat of land-based animals, plants, or even a little salmon, like contemporary brown bears, these bears appear to have lived almost exclusively on seafood."
The team is now working with collaborators in Sweden to perform DNA analysis on the samples in order to determine the species of the bears.
Over the years, bones from other now-extinct animals in Scotland have also been discovered in the cave system that includes lemming, wild horses, lynx and wolf.
