Ursus rossicus

[brobear]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursus_rossicus 
 

Ursus rossicus (the Pleistocene small cave bear) is an extinct species of bear that lived in the steppe regions of northern Eurasia and Siberia during the Pleistocene.  
Vereshchagin discovered the first U. rossicus remains in the Altai Mountains in 1973. Mandibles of the bear were found in Bachatsk Quarry, Krasni Yar (in Tomsk Province) and Mokhovo Quarry; skull fragments were found in Krasni Yar.
The small 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. 
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' diets 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 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 carnivores as opposed to herbivores.

Cave bears of the last Ice Age lacked the usual two or three premolars present in other bears; to compensate, the last molar is very elongated, with supplementary cusps

[brobear]

www.researchgate.net/publication/28300704_Pleistocene_small_cave_bear_Ursus_rossicus_from_the_South_Siberia_Russia

The skull, mandibles and cheek teeth of U. rossicus from four localities of the South Siberia are examined. This species inhabited the steppe regions in early Middle and Late Pleistocene. By odontological characters it is more close to U. r. rossicus from Krasnodar, than to U. rossicus uralensis from Kizel Cave in Ural. Discriminant analysis, based on measurements of lower cheek teeth of the cave bears from seven sites of Europe and Siberia, demonstrated that U. rossicus most resembles morphometrically U. savini. As a result of cladistic analysis employed 17 characters of skull, limb bones, and dentition, the phylogenetic tree has been obtained for 7 species of the genus Ursus. A four species of the cave bears are included in the subgenus Spelearctos: U. savini, U. rossicus, U. deningeri and U. spelaeus.

[brobear]

Right mandible of Ursus rossicus from Bachatsk quarry, IG 328. Lateral view.
                                                                  

[brobear]

Left mandible of Ursus rossicus from Mokhovo quarry, IG 10128. Lateral view.
                   

[brobear]

www.zin.ru/labs/theriology/staff/baryshnikov/references/baryshnikov_foronova_2001.pdf
 
INTRODUCTION
Small cave bear Ursus rossicus Borissiak,
1930 has been widely distributed in
Northern Eurasia in the Middle and Late
Pleistocene. In East Europe this species
was found in the south of Ukraine,
Northern Caucasus, Lower Volga River,
Bolshoi Irgiz River basin, Ural River and
in foothills of Ural Mountains
(BORISSIAK, 1932, VERESHCHAGIN
1959, 1982, K U Z M I N A, 1975,
BARYSHNIKOV et al., 1991). It is also
known from the plain areas of Kazakhstan
(KOJAMKULOVA, 1969). Two subspecies were distinguished: U. r. rossicus from
Northern Caucasus (Krasnodar), Lower
Volga (Kopanovka) and adjacent plains,
and U. r. uralensis Vereshchagin, 1973
from Kizel Cave and other cave localities
of Middle and South Ural. The geography
of fossil findings points out that the small
cave bear was mainly a dweller of open
herbaceous areas including the steppe
ones. It did not evidently penetrate to
West Europe where its remains are not
recorded.

[King Kodiak]

Good discovery there brobear. Great info. So this here is most likely the smallest cave bear correct?

[brobear]

Nov 28, 2019 8:29:24 GMT -5 King Kodiak said:

Good discovery there brobear. Great info. So this here is most likely the smallest cave bear correct?

Possibly, but with the possible exception of Ursus dolinensis. 
 
U. rossicus
                                   

[brobear]

Ursus rossicus, a species of bear from Pleistocene Eurasia and Siberia. by Yury Priymak 
                                                                                                                                

[brobear]

"A short-lived triumph"
In the early evening a small group of later Neanderthal hunters just killed a "Small Cave Bear" Ursus rossicus - an easy hunt because the bear was weakened from the long hibernation.

Hunters are happy that they will be able to provide food for the tribe, food so scanty at the end of the winter.

But soon the people notice that they are being observed by somebody, who is superior in strength and determination, so they must decide immediately what to do - to fight or flight.

Nearby the Imanai cave. Ural mountains. Mousterian.
The painting represents a possible interpretation of the recent findings of cave lions (including some giant specimens ), a small cave bear and Mousterian artifacts in the Imanai cave, Ural mountains, Bashkir Republic, Russia.

by Velizar Simeonovski 
                                  

[brobear]

www.zin.ru/labs/theriology/eng/staff/baryshnikov/references/pacher_et_al_2009.pdf

Cave bears of the Ural Mountains – a survey based on direct radiocarbon dates, aDNA and morphometrical analysis.

The Ural Mountains, forming the boundary between Europe and Asia, extend north to
south in a relatively narrow band from beyond the Arctic Circle to approximately latitude 50°
N. Cave bears are known from about forty sites including Secrets (Tayn) Cave, Medvezhiya
Cave, Geologov Cave and Asha Cave (KOSINTSEV, 2007; KOSINTSEV & VOROBIEV, 2001).
The cave bears of the Urals pose several interesting questions that need further investigation:
1) The typical species of cave bear U. spelaeus (based on genetic analysis an “U. ingressus”-
type was identified at some sites) occupied an isolated distribution area in the Urals
approximately 2000 km from the nearest cave bear sites to the west, and 1000 km from sites
to the south in the Caucasus, from where a distinct species of large cave bear Ursus
kudarensis has been described (BARYSHNIKOV, 1998). The general absence of cave bears in
the plains south and west of the Urals probably reflects the lack of karstic areas in these
regions, as nearly all remains of this species have been recovered from caves. The only
exception is the isolated population of U. spelaeus from the karstic area of the Zhiguli Hills
on the right bank of the Volga River near Samara city (VERESHCHAGIN, 1959). U. spelaeus is
recorded from many Ural caves, up to more than 60° north, but it has not been found east of
longitude 60° E; 2) Cave bears have been regarded as the only extinct megafaunal species or
group of species essentially confined to Europe, with the Urals defining the easternmost limit
of distribution. However, recent studies both based on aDNA and morphology suggest that
related forms of cave bear were present in the Altai, and even in Siberia (KNAPP et al., 2009).
Clearly much more research is needed into the taxonomy, geographical ranges and
chronological occurrences of the several forms of cave bear that have been recognized; 3) In
addition to “typical cave bear” U. spelaeus, a significantly smaller cave bear U. rossicus was
first described from Krasnodar, a loess site north of the Caucasus (BORISSIAK, 1932). The
Urals form U. rossicus uralensis can be regarded as a sister form of the Krasnodar small cave
bear U. rossicus rossicus (VERESHCHAGIN & BARYSHNIKOV, 2000). The only known large
assemblage of U. r. uralensis is from Kizel cave, on the western flank of the Middle Urals
although scattered finds are known from several sites in the steppe zone in the southern part
of Eastern Europe to southern Siberia and as far as Transbaikalia (VERESHCHAGIN &
BARYSHNIKOV, 2000). The Siberian finds indicate that this taxon occurred as early as the
Middle Pleistocene (BARYSHNIKOV & FORONOVA, 2001). We intend to test if some of these
finds are within the limits of radiocarbon dating. The analysis of dental morphology led
BARYSHNIKOV (2007) to suggest a close relationship between U. rossicus and U. savini and to
unite these taxa into a single species of smaller cave bears; 4) On the basis of stratigraphical
evidence and a few 14C dates from the early 1970s (e.g. KOSINTSEV, 2007) it has been
suggested that the Urals were one of the areas where cave bears survived the longest, even
into the Holocene (MUSIL, 1981).
As part of the Megafaunal Extinction Project (STUART et al., 2004; STUART & LISTER,
2007; STUART et al., 2009) M. Pacher and A. Stuart began research on the intriguing issue of
cave bear extinction (PACHER & STUART, 2009). Following on from this work we have now
studied material housed in St. Petersburg, Moscow and Ekaterinburg, with the aim of
determining the distribution of cave bears in the eastern part of their range, to compare
morphological and size differences with other cave bears, and to reconstruct their
chronological occurrence based on direct radiocarbon dates.

[brobear]

Cave bears of the Ural Mountains – a survey based on direct radiocarbon dates, aDNA and morphometrical analysis. ( continued ).

As mentioned above, a distinct form U. rossicus is considerably smaller than other
cave bears. A series of direct AMS radiocarbon dates that we obtained from Oxford (ORAU)
shows that most, but not all, of the specimens from Kizel cave are younger than other dated
cave bears from the Urals (Fig.1). The exceptions are one Oxford date OxA-19565
46250±700 BP and two samples dated at Vienna (VERA) that gave “older than” dates.
The latter two samples were also used for a first aDNA analysis. In spite of their
apparently great age, both samples yielded surprisingly well-preserved and amplifiable DNA,
allowing the determination of 285 bp of mitochondrial control region sequence. Interestingly,
both specimens exhibit an identical, but so far unique, sequence variant (haplotype) of the
cave bear group. Strictly speaking, they are most closely related to the “ingressus” bears
described from Central Europe (RABEDER & HOFREITER, 2004), but are still genetically as
distant as e.g. the “spelaeus” bears are to the “ladinicus” bears.
Our results so far, do not indicate that cave bears survived latest in the Urals region.
On the contrary, our newly acquired radiocarbon dates (made directly on cave bear material)
strongly suggest that they disappeared significantly earlier here than anywhere else. Much
further work, including morphological studies, radiocarbon dating, and more detailed aDNA
analyses of additional samples are needed to fully reconstruct and interpret the complex
spatio-temporal patterns for cave bears in the Urals and throughout their range.

[brobear]

WORLD OF PREHISTORIC CREATURES
Ursus rossicus, a species of bear from Pleistocene northern Eurasia and Siberia.
by Roman Roman Yevseyev

[OldGreenGrolar]

The Pleistocene small cave bear. He might be the smallest of his kind. Wonder if his temperament is like that of the barren ground grizzly or the Himalayan red bear?