37,000-year-old bamboo from Manipur gives a fresh take on India's Ice Age

Researchers examining fossil plant remains in the salt-rich deposits of the Chirang River in Manipur’s Imphal Valley have found a surprisingly intact bamboo stem, carrying ancient marks of once-existing thorns.

This is one of the earliest thorny bamboo fossil in Asia and could change the current understanding of the continent’s botanical history.

Bamboo fossils are rare as their hollow stems and fibrous tissues decay quickly, meaning there is very little geological record of them.

Scientists study bamboo remains by comparing modern species with their habitats.

The research by H Bhatia, P Kumari, NH Singh & G Srivastava adds a new dimension to the understanding of both bamboo evolution and regional climate history.

What the bamboo fossil revealed

Scientists from Birbal Sahni institution of Palaeosciences (BSIP), an autonomous institute of the Department of Science and Technology (DST) identified the marks on the fossil as thorn scars, giving way to further study into its identity and significance.

Through study of its morphology, which included nodes, buds, and thorn scars in the laboratory, they assigned it to the genus Chimonobambusa.

Further, they compared it with living thorny bamboos such as Bambusa bambos and Chimonobambusa callosa to reconstruct its defensive traits and ecological role.

This is the first fossil evidence that thorns on bamboos, which act as defence against herbivores, were present in Asia during the Ice Age.

This is a significant discovery as it comes from an age of colder and drier global climates, when bamboo was wiped out in many other regions, including Europe.

The fossil also proves that harsh Ice Age conditions restricted the growth of bamboo but Northeast India proved to be a location where the plant could thrive.

While bamboo became extinct in colder and drier regions of Europe, the warm and humid conditions of Northeast India allowed it to persist.

The finding also highlights the Indo-Burma biodiversity hotspot as an important ecosystem during the Ice Age.