A team of archaeologists discovered the complete skeleton of a camel that supposedly lived approximately 300 years ago during the second Ottoman-Habsburg war.

The well-preserved fossils were unearthed in a refuse pit located in the town of Tulln, Austria.
The researchers who found the camel skeleton said that the animal would have been truly exotic in those days and in that particular region.

Some of the scientists called the camel “a sunken ship in the desert.”
Alfred Galik, a scientist at the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna and one of the researchers involved in the discovery, explained that camels are like alien creatures in regions like Austria and European countries in general.

According to the experts who analyzed the camel’s bones, the animal had been a riding animal and not a beast of burden. The researchers said that the animal’s bones show no sign of arthritis, meaning that it was mostly used for riding.

The camel was actually a hybrid of two species of camels, the DNA analysis of the bones showed.
The animal’s father had been a Bactrian camel, which has two humps, and its mother was a dromedary camel, which has only one hump.

Galik said that the cross between the two different species of camels resulted in a camel with only one but large hump.

The researchers said that this kind of crossbreeding was not uncommon during that period. According to Galik the hybrid camels could be easier to handle, larger and more enduring than normal camels. The hybrid camels were usually used for military riding purposes.

Galik said that the camel was found in Tulln, Austria probably because it came with the Ottoman army when they were trying the attack the town.

The analysis of the bones revealed that the animal had not been butchered for eating purposes, probably because the townspeople did not know what a camel was.

The camel’s bones were found in a natural “post-death” position, with its legs pulled up toward the body and the neck bent upward. The animal was a male and it had been more than 7 years old at the time of death.
Image Source: dailysciencejournal

Climate change is real and is affecting our environment in alarming ways.
A new study suggests that climate change is affecting the polar bears by melting the sea ice, which is their most important food source.

A team of researchers conducted the study and found that because the ice is melting at an alarming rate, the polar bears won’t be able to find enough food on land to replace the diet they are currently on, which consists mostly of animals they hunt in the water.

The new study contradicts a previous one which suggested that even though the polar bears won’t be able to find food in the water, they will very well survive eating berries, bird eggs and other food sources found in land.

Karyn Rode, a wildlife biologist from the United States Geological Survey and one of the study’s lead authors, explained that there are polar bears that survive on land food, but their number is limited. The food sources found on land cannot replace their current marine diet, which consists of mammals like seals, says Rode.

Rode published the findings of her study in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment on Wednesday.
The main purpose of the study was to research the polar bears that are becoming more and more dependent on the food sources found on land.

The researchers wanted to see if previous studies, which suggest that polar bears can actually survive even though their natural habitat is slowly melting away, are accurate.

According to their findings, the food sources that can be found on land cannot replace the polar bears’ current diet.

However, some scientists do not agree with Rode’s new study.
One of those scientists is Robert Rockwell, an expert in ecology at City College of New York, who has been conducting studies on polar bears for more than 40 years.

According to Rockwell, he has studying polar bears for so long that he witnessed how their eating behavior is adapting according to their needs.

Rockwell said that he has seen polar bears feed on bird eggs, like goose eggs and young caribou.
Image Source: savebiogems