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Post by OldGreenGrolar on Dec 3, 2019 6:41:49 GMT -5
We need more information on the ETRUSCAN BEAR. My guess, it looks somewhat between a cave bear and a brown bear since both bears come from it.
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Post by brobear on Dec 3, 2019 8:02:34 GMT -5
We need more information on the ETRUSCAN BEAR. My guess, it looks somewhat between a cave bear and a brown bear since both bears come from it. Just look at the Asiatic black bear. Fossil remains of the Etruscan bear are so similar that some bear-biologists believe that the moon bear is a living Etruscan bear. If not, they look very similar.
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Post by brobear on Jan 5, 2020 7:19:09 GMT -5
Possibly our living Asiatic black bears and the Etruscan bears are one-and-the-same bear. That's a maybe.
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Post by brobear on Jul 6, 2020 15:12:23 GMT -5
Ursus etruscus fossil display.
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Post by brobear on Jun 7, 2022 14:32:44 GMT -5
Paleontologists have discovered the jaws of a rare bear in Taurida Cave The discovery indicates that ancient people could have appeared in the Crimea almost 2 million years ago. 20-May-2022 Newswise — A group of paleontologists, included researchers from the Ural Federal University (UrFU), discovered the jaws of an Etruscan bear from the early Pleistocene period (2–1.5 million years ago) in the Taurida cave. The remains of Etruscan bears (which is the ancestor of brown and cave bears) as part of the fauna of large mammals of the early Pleistocene were found in Western Europe, Asia, and North Africa. And now it is found in the Crimea. The bones indicate that the ancestor of modern man, the early Homo, most likely lived on the territory of the Crimean Peninsula almost 2 million years ago. The discovery was reported in the paleobiology journal Historical Biology.
“Our finding, on the one hand, extends the geography of distribution of the Etruscan bear in Eastern Europe, and on the other hand, it indicates that the “Crimean” bear is a link between Asian and European relatives. On the third hand, it helps to characterize the evolutionary features within the bears and the historical biogeography of this species,” said Dmitry Gimranov, senior researcher at the Laboratory of Natural Science Methods in the Humanities at UrFU.
Excavations by paleontologists were carried out in 2020–2021. The remains were found in the pre-surface layer of deposits of Taurida, in a small chamber called the “Hyena Den”. As a result of the research, it was established the features of life and the fact that the Etruscan bear coexisted next to such large predators as lynxes, giant hyenas, saber-toothed cats, wolves, with whom it had to compete for food resources just as it probably did with humans.
“More than 2 million years ago, together with the fauna of that time - antelopes, bulls, elephants, hyenas, Etruscan bears - the ancient man Homo moved towards Eurasia,” says Dmitry Gimranov. “As a rule, the presence of members of these faunas in the territories of Western Europe correlates with the presence of ancient Homo. The remains of ancient people have not yet been found in Taurida, most likely they were there, we just haven’t found them yet. But the structure of the Taurida's fauna - Etruscan bear, saber-toothed tigers, hyenas and other large mammals - suggests that at that time the migration routes of ancient people could pass through this territory.”
The Etruscan bear was a typical representative of European faunas during the early Homo period, scientists believe. They concluded by comparing finds from the Taurida cave and its closest point with the same fauna of the same age Dmanisi (Georgia), where the earliest Eurasian Homo remains were found.
At the next stage of the work, paleontologists plan to study the food habits and ecological characteristics of the Etruscan bears. This will help to understand how they competed for food resources with other large predators.
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Post by brobear on Jun 7, 2022 14:33:02 GMT -5
Note The Taurida Cave was discovered in Crimea in 2018. It is located 15 km east of Simferopol on the Inner Ridge of the Crimean Mountains. The bone layer of the cave corresponds to the fauna of Eastern Europe and the late Villafranchian of Western Europe (about 1.8–1.5 Ma). Taurida is rich in bones of early Pleistocene mammals. During two seasons of excavations, paleontologists found there the remains of the Issuar lynx, the skull of the giant hyena Pachycrocuta, and the bones of other ancient animals.
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Post by brobear on Jul 2, 2022 6:10:14 GMT -5
Etruscan bear Etruscan bear (Ursus etruscus (Cuvier, 1823)) Order: Carnivora Family: Ursidae Dimensions: length - 1,7-2,3 m, height - 100-130 сm, weight - 150-320 kg Temporal range: the Pliocene - Late Pleistocene of Europe, Asia and North Africa (~5.3 million to 100,000 years ago) The Etruscan bear is an extinct species of bear from Europe, Asia and North Africa during the Pliocene through Pleistocene. This is bear appears to have evolved from Ursus minimus and gave rise to the modern brown bear, Ursus arctos, and the extinct cave bear, Ursus spelaeus. Not unlike the modern brown bears of Europe in size, it had a full complement of premolars, a trait carried from the genus Ursavus. The range of U. 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.
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Post by brobear on Jul 2, 2022 6:12:13 GMT -5
I was just thinking; wouldn't it be something if the Atlas bear was actually the last of the Etruscan bears...
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Post by brobear on Dec 2, 2022 3:50:43 GMT -5
Etruscan bear: 150 kg (331 pounds) to 320 kg (705 pounds).
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