Researchers from Spain have named the ancient bear Kretzoiarctos and reported their findings in the current issue of the journal PLoS One.
Studying the ancient bear could help scientists understand how the giant panda evolved to feed on hard bamboo stems, Dr. Abella said.
The researchers theorized that this might mean it was a living hybrid between this ancient bear and another species, one strange enough to inspire myths in the locals who spotted it.
Pastoureau believes this was the concerted work of the medieval Roman Catholic Church, which saw the elimination of "the last remnants of the ancient bear cults" as central to establishing and maintaining hegemony over the regions of Europe whose popular imagination still tended toward the ursine.
If you're feeling bold, you can take one of the 5-6 day guided hikes around the jagged mountains, stopping off at the famous Milodon caves (once inhabited by ancient bear-like creatures), and the spectacular Grey Lake.
GR and PM obtained the ancient bear specimens and arranged the dating.
(a) Bivariate plot of the skull zygomatic width (in mm) and maximal length (in mm) of three of the ancient Yakutian bears from this study (green dots), and modern brown bears (Ursus arctos L.) from Siberia and the Russian Far East (triangles).
The mitogenome from CGG_1_0200006 was combined with 128 full mitochondrial genome sequences downloaded from NCBI: 17 ancient brown bears (41,201 4,635 years cal BP), 101 modern brown, and 10 polar bears; the mitochondrial lineage of the latter groups within the diversity of brown bears and hence was included in our analysis.
Consensus sequences were combined with 128 published mitochondrial genomes of ancient brown bears (n = 17, spanning from 41,201 to 4,635 years cal BP), modern brown (n = 101), and polar bears (n = 10) using MAFFT v7.39282 (see Supplementary Table 3).
Modern as well as ancient history bears witness that both innocent and guilty have been seized by officers of the state and whisked away for secret interrogation or worse until the groundwork has been securely laid for their inevitable conviction.
