![]() We identified the specimen by corroborating morphological, protein, and mitogenomic lines of evidence, and evaluated the potential natural and anthropogenic mechanisms of its transport and deposition. Here we illustrate the use of such an integrative approach and report the occurrence of North America’s largest terrestrial mammalian carnivore, the short-faced bear, Arctodus simus, from Daisy Cave (CA-SMI-261), an important early human occupation site on the California Channel Islands. Emerging techniques are refining our ability to decipher otherwise cryptic human-mediated species translocations across the Quaternary, yet these techniques are often used in isolation, rather than part of an interdisciplinary hypothesis-testing toolkit, limiting their scope and application. Alaska Fish and Wildlife News.An accurate understanding of biodiversity of the past is critical for contextualizing biodiversity patterns and trends in the present. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 30 (1): 262–275. Demythologizing Arctodus simus, the ‘short-faced’ long-legged and predaceous bear that never was. Bol Univ Nac Aut Mex Inst Geol 101:193-321 Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 19(1):169-186 Biostratigraphy of Blancan and Irvingtonian mammals in the Fish Creek-Vallecito Creek section, southern California, and a review of the Blancan-Irvingtonian boundary. Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences 30(5):1007-1013, collected by A.V. Arctodus simus from the Alaskan Arctic Slope. Kurten said that Arctodus was “…by far the most powerful predator in the Pleistocene fauna of North America”. ↑ In 1967 Bjorn Kurten of the University of Helsinki wrote a paper, Pleistocene Bears of North America.Another theory is that it let faster predators make the kill, then bullied them off the carcass. One theory is that the short-faced bear was an active predator, attacking bison directly. When it was standing on its hind (back) legs, the bear was 8–10 feet (2.4–3.0 m) tall. This suggested that the bear was probably bigger than scientists had thought. The original bones are in Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History.Ī recent study estimated the weight of six short-faced bear specimens. It is famous because it was the biggest most-nearly complete skeleton of a giant short-faced bear ever found in America. This animal might have been the largest carnivorous land mammal that ever lived in North America.Īrchaeologists have found only one giant short-faced bear skeleton, in Indiana. The oldest short-faced bear fossils are from the Santa Fe River 1 paleontological sites in Gilchrist County, Florida.Īrchaeologists first found fossils of the short-faced bear in the Potter Creek Cave in Shasta County, California. However, it lived mostly in southern areas, from northern Texas to New Jersey in the east Aguascalientes, Mexico to the southwest and with large concentrations in Florida. The short-faced bear lived in many parts of North America, ranging from Alaska to Mississippi. It became extinct about 11,600 years ago. ![]() Īrctodus simus first appeared during the middle Pleistocene in North America, about 800,000 years ago. At that time, Arctodus simus may have been one of the largest mammals that lived on land and ate meat. The short-faced bear or bulldog bear ( Arctodus) is an extinct genus of bear endemic to North America during the Pleistocene era about 1.8 million years ago (mya) to 11,000 years ago.
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