The cave bear fauna of the cave Schottloch (Dachstein Mountains, Austria)

Autor(en)

Nadja Kavcik-Graumann, Federica Alberti, Doris Döppes, Ronny Friedrich, Julia Stockhammer, Susanne Lindauer, Michael Hofreiter, Gernot Rabeder

Abstrakt

The fossil fauna of the Schottloch was excavated and described 140 years ago. A
modern analysis of the extensive material has now been carried out for the first time. The
taxonomic position of the cave bear remains, the degree of mountain adaptation compared to
other high alpine cave faunas and the geological period during which the cave bears used the
Schottloch as wintering quarters is the main research objective of this study. It concerns
numerous bones and teeth of cave bears, which could be assigned to the cave bear taxon Ursus
spelaeus eremus Rabeder et al. 2004 on the basis of metrical and morphological criteria. The
bears of the Schottloch are similar in size and evolutionary stage to the cave bears described
from various other karst plateaus of the Eastern Alps, which are called »plateau bears«. The
period during which these bears lived on the Dachstein plateau also corresponds to the
temporal distribution of the other »plateau bears«. The feeding possibilities of the herbivorous
cave bears on the large plateaus at around 2,000 m a.s.l. are discussed

Organisation(en)

Institut für Paläontologie

Externe Organisation(en)

Reiss-Engelhorn-Museen, Universität Potsdam, Curt-Engelhorn-Zentrum Archäometrie gGmbH, Max-Planck-Institut für evolutionäre Anthropologie

Journal

e-Research Reports of Museum Burg Golling

Band

12

Anzahl der Seiten

7

Publikationsdatum

2023

Peer-reviewed

Ja

ÖFOS 2012

105118 Paläontologie

Link zum Portal

https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/de/publications/fb6d8a35-c2fe-4fc4-9ad1-e3454fa9ec9c