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75,000 years old: Europe's oldest Arctic animal community discovered in Norway cave
The bones of a vast community of 46 animals in a 75,000-year-old cave in Norway have provided a stunning and rare snapshot of a vanished Arctic world.
Researchers only recently discovered and explored Arne Ovamgrotta, but the ancient cave has held a significant collection of animal bones for 75,000 years.
Researchers confirmed the finding of 46 different types of animals, hinting at the existence of a large community banding together to weather the cold.
Their remains represent the oldest example of an animal community in the European Arctic during this warmer period of the Ice Age and provide an unprecedented first look at a community struggling, if not failing to survive, climate change.
According to a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), the study authors believe the newly discovered bones will feed conservation efforts today by helping researchers understand 'resilience and extinction risk in the present.'
These animals didn't survive the Ice Age
According to study author Dr. Sam Walker of Bournemouth University and the University of Oslo, this 'rare snapshot of a vanished Arctic world' included an impressive, if not astonishing, assemblage of bones.
Among the animals were polar bears, walruses, bowhead whales, Atlantic puffins, common eiders, rock ptarmigans, and Atlantic cod. Additionally, as per a press release, they found collared lemmings, which no one had ever uncovered in Scandavia previously, a species now extinct in Europe.
The massive number communicated to researchers that temperatures had increased significantly enough 75,000 years ago to allow these animals passage to the cave. Reindeer, porpoise, and freshwater fish bones further told researchers that rivers and lakes returned to this area.
'The cave has now revealed a diverse mix of animals in a coastal environment representing both the marine and the terrestrial environment,' according to a press release. A picture of this region on Earth became clearer than ever as remains over 10,000 years old are a rare find. This underexplored period during the Ice Age saw the melting of ice, which was enough to support a struggling community of animals.
Warnings for our future
DNA testing found that these animals did not survive when temperatures dropped back to bone-chilling and fatal degrees. Harsh sheets of ice returned to the region, preventing any possibility of migrating elsewhere, as per Popsci.
'This highlights how cold-adapted species struggle to adapt to major climatic events. This has a direct link to the challenges they are facing in the Arctic today as the climate warms at a rapid pace,' said Dr Walker.
'The habitats these animals in the region live in today are much more fractured than 75,000 years ago, so it is even harder for animal populations to move and adapt,' Dr. Walker continued.
'It is also important to note that this was a shift to a colder, not a period of warming, that we are facing today,' senior author Professor Boessenkool says. 'And these are cold-adapted species – so if they struggled to cope with colder periods in the past, it will be even harder for these species to adapt to a warming climate,' she concludes in a press release.
Read the study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
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