A 3,500-year-old bear that was perfectly preserved in permafrost is being dissected by Russian researchers now

Aditi Bharade
Updated ·2 min read
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  • A bear died on a frigid island in eastern Siberia and was perfectly preserved for 3,460 years.

  • Russian researchers are now dissecting the bear — the first full specimen like it, per Reuters.

  • A video by Reuters shows the bear frozen in motion, with one leg ahead of the other.

A bear died on a frigid island in eastern Siberia and was perfectly preserved for 3,460 years. Now, scientists are dissecting its carcass to try to find out more about it.

The carcass of a female brown bear was found in 2020 by reindeer herders, who spotted it jutting out of the permafrost. It is now being dissected by scientists at the North-Eastern Federal University in Yakutsk, eastern Siberia, Reuters reported.

This is the first time a full, fossilized brown bear has been unearthed, said Maxim Cheprasov, the lab chief at the university's Lazarev Mammoth Museum Laboratory, in an exchange with Reuters.

"For the first time, scientists have got a carcass of such an animal with soft tissues which has given us the opportunity to study the internal organs and examine the brain," Cheprasov said.

Reuters' video of the dissection showed the bear on its back on a laboratory table, its brown fur coated in years of dirt. Its hind legs were seen frozen in motion, with one ahead of the other. The bear's paws were in perfect condition, complete with toenails intact.

The bear fossil weighs around 170 pounds and stands at a height of 5.1 feet, per Reuters.

Before the bear's discovery, only skeletons or skulls of bears had been found, Reuters reported. But this time, researchers realized the frigid Siberian temperatures helped preserve the bear complete with the remnants of its final meals — birds and plants — still in its stomach.

The fossil was named the "Etherican brown bear," after the Bolshoy Etherican River. The bear carcass was found near that river on the Bolshoy Lyakhovsky Island, about 3,200 miles east of  Moscow.

Researchers are now carrying out tests on the bear to determine its exact biological age, the time it died, and its cause of death.

Representatives at the North-Eastern Federal University did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

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