| Ursus etruscus Temporal range: | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Fossils | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Carnivora |
| Family: | Ursidae |
| Genus: | Ursus |
| Species: | †U. etruscus |
| Binomial name | |
| †Ursus etruscus Cuvier, 1823 | |
Ursus etruscus (the Etruscan bear) is an extinct species of bear, endemic to Europe, Asia and North Africa during the Pliocene through Pleistocene, living from ~5.3 million to 100,000 years ago.
Ursus etruscus appears to have evolved from Ursus minimus and gave rise to the modern brown bear, Ursus arctos , and the extinct cave bear, Ursus spelaeus . [1] The range of Ursus etruscus was mostly continental Europe with specimens also recovered in the Great Steppe region of Eurasia. Fossil evidence for Ursus etruscus was recovered in Palestine, Croatia, and Tuscany, Italy.
Some scientists have proposed that the early, small variety of U. etruscus of the middle Villafranchian era survives in the form of the modern Asian black bear. [2]
Not unlike the brown bears of Europe in size, it had a full complement of premolars, a trait carried from the genus Ursavus .
Sites and specimen ages:
The brown bear is a large bear species found across Eurasia and North America. In North America, the populations of brown bears are called grizzly bears, while the subspecies that inhabits the Kodiak Islands of Alaska is known as the Kodiak bear. It is one of the largest living terrestrial members of the order Carnivora, rivaled in size only by its closest relative, the polar bear, which is much less variable in size and slightly bigger on average. The brown bear's range includes parts of Russia, Central Asia, the Himalayas, China, Canada, the United States, Hokkaido, Scandinavia, Finland, the Balkans, the Picos de Europa and the Carpathian region, Iran, Anatolia, and the Caucasus. The brown bear is recognized as a national and state animal in several European countries.
The Palearctic or Palaearctic is the largest of the eight biogeographic realms of the Earth. It stretches across all of Eurasia north of the foothills of the Himalayas, and North Africa.
The cave bear is a prehistoric species of bear that lived in Europe and Asia during the Pleistocene and became extinct about 24,000 years ago during the Last Glacial Maximum.
Ursinae is a subfamily of Ursidae (bears) named by Swainson (1835). It was assigned to Ursidae by Bjork (1970), Hunt (1998) and Jin et al. (2007).
Ursus is a genus in the family Ursidae (bears) that includes the widely distributed brown bear, the polar bear, the American black bear, and the Asian black bear. The name is derived from the Latin ursus, meaning bear.
The Atlas bear or North African bear is an extinct population or populations of brown bear native to North Africa that became extinct in historical times.
The Eurasian brown bear is one of the most common subspecies of the brown bear, and is found in much of Eurasia. It is also called the European brown bear, common brown bear, common bear, and colloquially by many other names. The genetic diversity of present-day brown bears has been extensively studied over the years and appears to be geographically structured into five main clades based upon analysis of the mtDNA.
The Cantabrian brown bear, Iberian brown bear, or Iberian bear is a population of Eurasian brown bears living in the Cantabrian Mountains of Spain.
Arctodus is an extinct genus of short-faced bear that inhabited North America during the Pleistocene. There are two recognized species: the lesser short-faced bear and the giant short-faced bear, also known as the bulldog bear. Both species are relatively rare in the fossil record. A. pristinus was largely restricted to the Early Pleistocene of the eastern United States, whereas A. simus had a broader range, with most finds being from the Late Pleistocene of the US, Mexico and Canada. A. simus evolved from A. pristinus, but both species likely overlapped in the Middle Pleistocene. Of these species, A. simus was larger, is known from more complete remains, and is considered one of the most charismatic of North America's megafauna.
Ursus deningeri is an extinct species of bear, endemic to Eurasia during the Pleistocene for approximately 1.7 million years, from 1.8 to 0.1 million years ago.
Ursus minimus is an extinct species of bear, endemic to Europe during the Pliocene and Pleistocene, living from 5.3 to 1.8 Mya, existing for about 3.5 million years.
The Beringian wolf is an extinct population of wolf that lived during the Ice Age. It inhabited what is now modern-day Alaska, Yukon, and northern British Columbia. Some of these wolves survived well into the Holocene. The Beringian wolf is an ecomorph of the gray wolf and has been comprehensively studied using a range of scientific techniques, yielding new information on the prey species and feeding behavior of prehistoric wolves. It has been determined that these wolves are morphologically distinct from modern North American wolves and genetically basal to most modern and extinct wolves. The Beringian wolf has not been assigned a subspecies classification and its relationship with the extinct European cave wolf is not clear.
Ursus rossicus is an extinct species of bear that lived in the steppe regions of northern Eurasia and Siberia during the Pleistocene.
Ursus dolinensis is an extinct mammalian carnivore species of the Ursidae family. Its fossilized remains were unearthed from the lowest layers of the stratigraphic sequence at the archaeological and paleontological site of Gran Dolina, that is a part of the Atapuerca Mountains complex in the Burgos province, northern Spain. The species was described by Nuria Garcia and Juan Luis Arsuaga in a 2001 publication. Skeletal fossils, mainly cranial fragments were recovered from the sediment units TD 3 and in particular TD 4. Presence in these layers suggests a chronology in between 900,000 and 780,000 years ago, which falls into the Calabrian stage of the early Pleistocene.
The small Sirgenstein Cave, German: Sirgensteinhöhle is situated 565 m (1,854 ft) above sea level inside the 20 m (66 ft) high Sirgenstein, a limestone rock. The cave sits 35 m (115 ft) above the Ach River valley bottom in the central Swabian Jura, southern Germany. Archaeologist R. R. Schmidt excavated the site in 1906 during which he identified indices of prehistoric human presence. He recorded the complete stratigraphic sequence of Palaeolithic and Neolithic origin. In his 1910 analysis Schmidt inspired future archaeologists with his pioneering concept of including the excavation site within its geographic region, contextualizing it within a wide scientific spectrum and demonstrated valuable results as he correlated the Sirgenstein layer structure to those of prehistoric sites in France. Mammoth ivory beads dating from 39,000 to 35,000 years ago have been uncovered at the cave. Because of its historical and cultural significance and its testimony to the development of Paleolithic art, the cave was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List as part of the Caves and Ice Age Art in the Swabian Jura site in 2017.
Ursus ingressus is an extinct species of the family Ursidae that lived in Central Europe during the Late Pleistocene. It is named after the Gamssulzen Cave in Austria, where the holotype of this species was found.
The steppe brown bear is a disputed extinct subspecies of brown bear that lived in Eurasia during either the Pleistocene or the early Holocene epochs, but its geological age is uncertain. Fossils of the bear have been found in various caves in Slovakia, particularly those of Vazec, Vyvieranie, Lisková, Kupcovie Izbicka, and Okno. It is argued that the subspecies should be rendered invalid, as its geological age is unclear and "its skull is identical to modern U. arctos."
The Cave of Salemas is located close to the village of Lousa in the municipality of Loures in the Lisbon District of Portugal. Discovered by archaeologists during the 1950s, the cave appears to have been occupied by humans as a temporary refuge during the Upper Paleolithic and used as a tomb during the Neolithic.
Formerly or currently considered subspecies or populations of brown bears have been listed as follows:
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