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Paleontologists have actually found a set of ancient bear footprints in Honseca Cave, northern Spain. Identifying cavern bear from brown bear tracks is intricate, cavern bears are thought about the most likely tracemakers in Honseca.
Cavern bear footprints in Honseca Cave, Spain. Image credit: Rodríguez et aldoi: 10.1080/ 10420940.2024.2446153.
Cavern bears(Ursus spelaeuswere a huge kind of bear that formed the sibling family tree of living brown bears and polar bears.
These animals resided in Europe and Asia throughout the Pleistocene date and ended up being extinct about 24,000 years back.
They were 2.7-3.5 m(8.9-11.5 feet)long and as much as 1.7 m (5.6 feet)at the shoulder, and weighed in between 225 and 500 kg.
Cavern bears and individuals most likely experienced one another periodically.
In spite of their name, they didn’t in fact reside in caverns however just utilized them for hibernation.
The huge grinding molars and nitrogen-isotope information from its bones show that cavern bears were mainly herbivorous, with foliage their primary dietary staple.
“Cave bear tracks are not unusual in the soft sediments of the caverns of the Iberian Peninsula and lots of speleologists recognize with their existence,” stated Dr. Ana Mateos from the Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana (CENIEH).
“However, previously these fossil traces had actually not been the topic of methodical research study.”
“In truth, to date just one research study of this type was performed in Urşilor Cave in Romania.”
Restoration of the cavern bear (Ursus spelaeus. Image credit: Sergio de la Larosa/ CC BY-SA 3.0.
Dr. Mateos and coworkers found a set of 16 cavern bear footprints in Honseca Cave, Palencia, Spain.
The footprints were designated to Ursichnus europaeus and represent the very first record of this ichnospecies from a collapse the Iberian Peninsula.
“We performed a scan of the surface area with the footprints and its instant environments with a laser scanner that produces a three-dimensional cloud of countless points and we integrated it with a design acquired by photogrammetry,” stated Dr. Adrián Martinez, a specialist at CENIEH.
“This design has actually been utilized to take various measurements of the footprints and compare them with those of other collapse Europe, like the Romanian cavern of Urşilor.”
“In addition, processing the design has actually permitted us to produce images that highlight the shape of each private footprint,” included Dr. Alfonso Benito, likewise of CENIEH.
“The shape of the toe impressions and the length of the claw marks, both in Urşilor and Honseca, recommend that in both cases they come from cave bears, a types that went extinct around 28,000 years back, instead of brown bears.”
“Unfortunately, a few of the footprints were ruined by the steps of novices who checked out the interior of the cavern without taking care before the researchers understood of their presence,” stated CENIEH’s Dr. Jesús Rodríguez.
“Therefore, among the objectives of these kinds of research studies is to highlight the worth of these fossils and promote their conservation.”
The research study was released this month in the journal Ichnos
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J. Rodríguez et alCavern bear tracks (Ursichnus europaeus Diedrich, 2011) from Honseca Cave, Palencia, Spain. Ichnosreleased online January 9, 2025; doi: 10.1080/ 10420940.2024.2446153
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