Polar bears are now eating dolphins lured north by warming water.

Scientists for the first time observed the bears feasting on white-beaked dolphins in Svalbard in the Norwegian Arctic. They theorise the dolphins, lured northward by warmer waters, were trapped under the ice and killed by the bears when coming up for air through a small hole, they wrote in a new study.

A polar bear eats a white-beaked dolphin in Svalbard in the Norwegian Arctic. Credit:SAMUEL BLANC

"This is the first record of this species as polar bear prey," the authors led by the Norwegian Polar Institute's Jon Aars said in the paper published this month in the Polar Research journal.

"The warming of the Arctic is significantly changing the ecosystem and relations between species."