Ursus spelaeus - the classic cave bear

[brobear]

WORLD OF PREHISTORIC CREATURES - a facebook group.

Velizar Simeonovski

Cave bear ( Ursus spelaeus ) (top)
Short-faced bear ( Arctodus simus ) (middle)
"African bear" Agriotherium africanum (bottom)

[OldGreenGrolar]

The Arctodus and Agriotherium looks a bit different in the pictures. They probably do so in real life too which makes them distinguishable from each other.

[brobear]

Apr 26, 2021 21:02:24 GMT -5 OldGreenGrolar said:

The Arctodus and Agriotherium looks a bit different in the pictures. They probably do so in real life too which makes them distinguishable from each other.

In real life; I'm sure their appearance would make it obvious who is who. A lions mane is not revealed in fossil bones. Neither are the tiger's stripes.

[brobear]

Ursus spelaeus, the cave bear from Pleistocene Europe and Asia.
These bears were about 2.5 to 3 m. long and stood 1.5 m. tall at the shoulder.
by Julio Lacerda  
                         

[OldGreenGrolar]

/\ The bear of all bears will forever be the cave bear. I am surprise that it’s about is shorter than most bears too.

[brobear]

dinopedia.fandom.com/wiki/Cave_Bear

The cave bear (Ursus spelaeus) was a species of bear that lived in Europe during the Pleistocene and became extinct at the beginning of the Last Glacial Maximum about 27,500 years ago. Both the name cave and the scientific name spelaeus derive from the fact that fossils of this species were mostly found in caves, indicating that this species spent more time in caves than the brown bear, which only uses caves for hibernation. Consequently, in the course of time, whole layers of bones, almost entirely those of skeletons, were found in many caves.

Cave Bear's (e.g. Ursus Spelaeus) are extinct species of bears which lived in Eurasia, the Middle and Late Pleistocene and became extinct about 15,000 years ago. The specific name "cave" (Latin spelaeus) is that why Cave Bear's are called that because its bones are found in many caves. The body length of the bear reached 2.7-3.5 metres, which is 30% larger than the modern brown bear. The front part of the body was more developed than the back legs which were short and strong; it also had a massive head. The skull of Cave Bear's differ from the brown bear with a much more steeper forehead, and with the lack of front teeth. It was probably a vegetarian, whose main food consisted of herbaceous plants, and honey.

However, in winter, in the cold season, the bear could hunt for prey and other animals.Cave Bear's are found only in Eurasia, which formed in several geographical races, differing in size. The cause of extinction was probably the climate in the late Warm glacial period, when the forest cover has declined sharply, depriving the Cave Bear's food sources. However, the prominent role played in its extinction were probably because of hunting activities of ancient people.

[brobear]

MORE: History of cave bear discoveries
Cave bear skeletons were first described in 1774 by Johann Friederich Esper in his book Newly Discovered Zoolites of Unknown Four Footed Animals. Originally thought to belong to dragons, unicorns, apes, canids or felids, Esper postulated that they actually belonged to polar bears. Twenty years later, Johann Christian Rosenmüller, an anatomist at the Leipzig University, gave the species its binomial name. The bones were so numerous that most researchers held little respect for them. During World War I, large amounts of cave bear bones were used as a source of phosphates, leaving behind little more than skulls and leg bones.

Many caves in Central Europe have skeletons of cave bears inside, for example the Heinrichshöhle in Hemer or the Dechenhöhle in Iserlohn, Germany. In Romania, there is a cave called Bears' Cave where 140 cave bear skeletons were discovered in 1983.spelaeus.

Range and Habitat

The Senior bugged cave bear's range stretched across Europe, from Spain to Eurasia, from Italy and Greece to Belgium, the Netherlands and Great Britain, across a portion of Germany through Poland, then south into Hungary, Romania and parts of Russia, Caucasus and northern Iran. There have been no traces of cave bears living in northern Britain, Scandinavia or the Baltic countries, which were covered in extensive glaciers at the time. The largest numbers of cave bear remains have been found in Austria, Switzerland, southern Germany, northern Italy, northern Spain, Croatia, Hungary, and Romania. The huge number of bones found in south, central and east Europe has led some scientists to think that Europe may have once had literal herds of cave bears. Some scientists point out that though some caves have thousands of bones, they were accumulated over a period of 100,000 years or more, thus requiring only two deaths in a cave per year to account for the large numbers.

The cave bear inhabited low mountainous areas, especially in regions rich in limestone caves. They seem to have avoided open plains, preferring forested or forest-edged terrains.

[brobear]

MORE: Anatomy

The cave bear had a very broad, domed skull with a steep forehead. Its stout body had long thighs, massive shins and in-turning feet, making it similar in skeletal structure to the Brown Bear. Cave bears were comparable in size to the largest modern day bears. The average weight for males was 400–500 kilograms (880–1102 pounds), while females weighed 225–250 kg (496–551 lbs). Of cave bear skeletons in museums, 90% are male due to a misconception that the female skeletons were merely "dwarfs". Cave bears grew larger during glaciations and smaller during interglacials, probably to adjust heat loss rate. Cave bears of the last ice age lacked the usual 2–3 premolars present in other bears; to compensate, the last molar is very elongated, with supplementary cusps. The humerus of the cave bear was similar in size to that of the polar bear, as were the femora of females. The femora of male cave bears, however, bore more similarities in size to those of kodiak bears.

[brobear]

MORE: Dietary habits

Cave bear teeth show greater wear than most modern bear species, suggesting a diet of tough materials. However, tubers and other gritty food, which cause distinctive tooth wear in modern brown bears, do not appear to have constituted a major part of cave bears' diet on the basis of dental microwear analysis.

The morphological features of the cave bear chewing apparatus, including loss of premolars, have long been suggested to indicate that their diets displayed a higher degree of herbivory than the Eurasian brown bear. Indeed, a solely vegetarian diet has been inferred on the basis of tooth morphology. Results obtained on the stable isotopes of cave bear bones also point to a largely vegetarian diet in having low levels of nitrogen-15 and carbon-13, which are accumulated at a faster rate by meat eaters as opposed to herbivores.

However, some evidence points toward inclusion of at least occasional animal protein in the cave bear diet. For example, toothmarks on cave bear remains in areas where cave bears are the only recorded potential carnivores suggests occasional cannibalistic scavenging, possibly on individuals that died during hibernation, and dental microwear analysis indicates that the cave bear may have fed on a greater quantity of bone than its contemporary, the smaller Eurasian brown bear. Additionally, cave bear remains from Peştera cu Oase in the southwestern tip of the Carpathian mountains had elevated levels of nitrogen-15 in their bones, indicative of an omnivorous diet, although the values are within the range of those found for the strictly herbivorous mammoth. Although the current prevailing opinion concludes that cave bears were largely herbivorous, and more so than any modern species of the genus Ursus, increasing evidence points to an omnivorous diet, based both on regional variability of isotopic composition of bone remains indicative of dietary plasticity, and on a recent reevaluation of its craniodental morphology that places the cave bear squarely among omnivorous modern bear species with respect to its skull and tooth shapes.

[brobear]

MORE: Mortality

Death during hibernation was a common end for cave bears, mainly befalling specimens that failed ecologically during the summer season through inexperience, sickness or old age. Some cave bear bones show signs of numerous different ailments, including fusion of the spine, bone tumours, cavities, tooth resorption, necrosis (particularly in younger specimens), osteomyelitis, periostitis, rickets and kidney stones. Male cave bear skeletons have been found with broken baculums, probably due to fighting during breeding season. Cave bear longevity is unknown, though it has been estimated that they seldom exceeded 20 years of age.

Paleontologists doubt adult cave bears had any natural predators, save for pack hunting wolves and cave hyenas which would probably have attacked sick or infirm specimens. Cave hyenas are thought to be responsible for the dis-articulation and destruction of some cave bear skeletons. Such large carcasses were an optimal food resource for the hyenas, especially at the end of the winter, when food was scarce. The presence of fully articulated adult cave lion skeletons, deep in cave bear dens, indicates that lions may have occasionally entered dens to prey on hibernating cave bears, with some dying in the attempt.

[brobear]

www.donsmaps.com/bear.html

The bear and cavebear in fact, myth and legend 
 
*Too much great information to copy and paste.

[brobear]

Artwork: www.atlasvirtual.com.br/ursodascavernas.htm  
 
Cannot copy and paste, but a good read.

[brobear]

An Ursus spelaeus vs. a pack of Crocuta crocuta spelaea - by Emiliano Troco

www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=4538482392913497&set=gm.4736814986397557

[OldGreenGrolar]

Nov 21, 2021 7:43:45 GMT -5 brobear said:

An Ursus spelaeus vs. a pack of Crocuta crocuta spelaea - by Emiliano Troco

www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=4538482392913497&set=gm.4736814986397557

The interaction will probably be smiled to grizzlies and wolves.

[brobear]

Homotherium latidens and Ursus spelaeus

[brobear]

About Reply #73 - The picture of a cave bear displacing a scimitar cat is an unlikely scenario as the cave bears were mostly vegetarian. However, if the cave bear, for whatever reason, did decide to displace a big cat ( any species ), he certainly had the ability to do so. 
 
Edit and add: unless this cave bear is Ursus Ingressus. 

[brobear]

Cave Bear Ursus spelaeus

www.fossilguy.com/gallery/vert/mammal/land/cave-bear/index.htm

Fast Facts about Cave Bears:

Name: Cave Bear - Ursus spelaeus - "Cave Bear"

Taxonomy: Class: Mammal - Order: Carnivore - Family: Ursidae - Genus: Ursus - Species: spelaeus

Age: Pleistocene
The cave bear lived during the Ice Ages. It was one of the first Ice Age animals to die off around 24,000 years ago.

Discovery: Johann Friederich Esper, 1774
Although cave bear remains have been found throuought most of history and Ice Age humans even painted living cave bears, the cave bear was first scientifically described in 1774 by Johann Friederich Esper.

Distribution: Europe:
Cave bear fossils are found throughout Europe and parts of Eurasia.

Appearance:
Male cave bears weighed around 1000 lbs and were similar in size to today's Alaskan kodiak bear. This is about 30% larger than the brown bear. Their skulls are distinctively wide with a steep forehead.

Diet: Omnivore
Analysis shows many cave bears were mostly herbivorous, feeding on plants and roots.
However, they did sometimes eat meat. Meat sources included fish, insects, and small mammals.
Cave bears did not hunt and stalk large animals or humans.

Caves:
Cave bears did not live in caves. They used caves to hibernate during the long and harsh Ice Age winters. Since cave bears would sometimes die during hibernation, their bones are now commonly found in caves throughout Europe.

[brobear]

Cave Bear

[brobear]

European Cave Bear - Ursus spelaeus

The cave bear (Ursus spelaeus) was a species of bear that lived in Europe during the Pleistocene and became extinct at the beginning of the Last Glacial Maximum about 27,500 years ago. Both the name cave and the scientific name spelaeus derive from the fact that fossils of this species were mostly found in caves, indicating that this species spent more time in caves than the brown bear, which only uses caves for hibernation. Consequently, in the course of time, whole layers of bones, almost entire skeletons, were found in many caves. The cave bear had a very broad, domed skull with a steep forehead. Its stout body had long thighs, massive shins and in-turning feet, making it similar in skeletal structure to the brown bear. Cave bears were comparable in size to the largest modern day bears. The average weight for males was 400–500 kilograms (880–1102 pounds), while females weighed 225–250 kg (496–551 lbs). Of cave bear skeletons in museums, 90% are male due to a misconception that the female skeletons were merely "dwarfs". Cave bears grew larger during glaciations and smaller during interglacials, probably to adjust heat loss rate. Cave bears of the last ice age lacked the usual 2–3 premolars present in other bears; to compensate, the last molar is very elongated, with supplementary cusps. The humerus of the cave bear was similar in size to that of the polar bear, as were the femora of females. The femora of male cave bears, however, bore more similarities in size to those of kodiak bears.

[brobear]

DNA from 360,000-year-old bone reveals oldest non-permafrost genome ( FEBRUARY 22, 2021 )

phys.org/news/2021-02-dna-year-old-bone-reveals-oldest.html

Scientists have successfully sequenced the genome of an extinct cave bear using a 360,000-year-old bone—the oldest genome of any organism from a non-permafrost environment. The work, involving Nottingham Trent University and the University of Potsdam in Germany, has revealed a new evolutionary history for the giant cave bear, which became extinct about 25,000 years ago.

As part of the study, the team found that cave bears and their living relatives—the brown bear and polar bear—diverged from a common ancestor about 1.5 million years ago.

They also found that many significant events in bear evolution may have been driven by major global climate change about one million years ago, when cold phases—or ice ages—became longer and more intense and warm phases much shorter.

Cave bears, which grew larger than brown bears, weighing up to a ton, were widespread across Eurasia during the Pleistocene. They coexisted with brown bears and interbred with them, and modern brown bears still carry traces of extinct cave bear in their genomes.

The sample analyzed by the researchers was from a cave bear which inhabited the Southern Caucasus, in what is now Georgia, around the Middle Pleistocene.

The oldest DNA sequences have previously come from permafrost environments where DNA is much better preserved.

For this study, however, the researchers wanted to push back the time limit of paleogenome sequencing much further into warmer, temperate zones, which were home to a far greater range of species.

The work involved extracting the ancient DNA from a tiny piece of petrous bone (0.05g) part of the skull that contains the organs of the inner ear and which is known to be resistant to contamination from external DNA sources.

The DNA was then prepared for sequencing, producing billions of individual short DNA sequences which represented a mixture of DNA from the cave bear and contaminants the bone had picked up over hundreds of thousands of years.

Computational analysis was used to sort the target sequences from the contamination, which is done my matching the short sequences to a reference genome of a related organism, in this case the polar bear.

In order to learn more about the evolution of the cave bear, once the team had the genome data for the 360,000 year old bear, they were able to compare with others from between 35,000 and 70,000 years ago to provide broad sampling of all the major cave bear lineages.

Because the time difference between the cave bear samples was so great, the team was able to count how many DNA mutations had occurred during this period.

From here they could calculate the rate of DNA mutation in the cave bear genome, as well as the time that the different lineages diverged.

Using the newly calculated mutation rate, the researchers found that cave bears and their living relatives, the brown and polar bears, diverged from a common ancestor.

And while they had previously shown that cave bears interbred with brown bears, with the mutation rate they are now able to date these events.

The study has further revealed the importance of climatic changes on species evolution, showing that bear evolution—the divergence of brown and polar bears, the divergence of cave bear lineages and the end of the gene flow between cave and brown bears—all occurred at around the same period a million years ago, when the world became colder.

While this study involved analyzing nuclear DNA, which is inherited from both parents, previous work has relied on mitochondrial DNA, which can only trace maternal ancestry. The team found that cave bears exchanged mitochondrial DNA frequently during their evolution, which until now had obscured their true evolutionary relationships.

"Our analysis of the whole genome data has revealed a new evolutionary history for cave bears," said lead researcher Dr. Axel Barlow, an expert in palaeogenomics and molecular bioscience in Nottingham Trent University's School of Science and Technology, who worked on the project with senior author Professor Michael Hofreiter at the University of Potsdam.

He said: "We have been able to determine the mutation rate of the cave bear genome for the first time. Using this information, we have discovered that major climatic changes may have been a factor driving major evolutionary events in these giant bears."

"With DNA, we can decipher the genetic code of extinct animals long after they've gone, but over thousands of years, the DNA present in ancient samples slowly disappears, creating a time limit of how far back in time you can normally go."

"Our study shows that this amazing molecule can survive even longer than previously thought, opening up new opportunities for genetic investigation over previously unimaginable timescales. We analyzed a petrous bone that was around seven times older than any we had previously studied, showing that genome data can be recovered from temperate zone samples spanning more than 300 millennia."

"To put this in context, this cave bear probably lived before our own species, Homo sapiens, even came into existence."

Unlike the brown bear, cave bears were vegetarian. Their name comes from the fact they used to hibernate in caves during the winter, a time when many died because they had failed to fatten up sufficiently.

The cause of their extinction is uncertain. It is thought that climate change could have been a factor, along with the influx of modern humans from Africa, which coincides with their decline. Cave bear bones have been found with human spear points embedded in them and early humans also painted images of cave bears on the walls of their caves.

The work is published in the journal Current Biology.