Researchers disagree on the diet of Arctodus. DietĪmerican mastodon arm bone with A. simus tooth marks at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science in Denver, Colorado At Riverbluff Cave, Missouri, a series of claw marks up to 4.6 m (15 ft) high have been found along the cave wall indicating short-faced bears up to 3.7 m (12 ft) tall. simus are estimated to have weighed more than 1,200 kg (2,600 lb). simus stood 1.5–1.8 m (5–6 ft) high at the shoulder and would be tall enough to look an adult human in the eye. pristinus was much lighter, estimated at an average weight of 540 kg (1,190 lb). There is much variation in adult size among specimens, suggesting that like living bears, Arctodus was both sexually dimorphic (with females smaller than males) and varied in size in different areas (with northern populations larger). simus specimens was estimated one-third of them weighed about 900 kg (1 short ton), the largest 957 kg (2,110 lb), suggesting specimens that big were probably more common than previously thought. Īrctodus pristinus inhabited more southerly areas, ranging from northern Texas to New Jersey in the east, Aguascalientes, Mexico to the southwest, and with large concentrations in Florida, the oldest from the Santa Fe River 1 site of Gilchrist County, Florida paleontological sites. The original bones are in the Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago. It has become well known in scientific circles because it was the most nearly complete skeleton of a giant short-faced bear found in America. A giant short-faced bear skeleton has been found in Indiana, unearthed south of Rochester. simus might have been the largest land-dwelling species of Carnivora that ever lived in North America. Remains of the giant short-faced bear, along with Paleo-Indian artifacts and the remains of the flat-headed peccary, stag moose, and the giant beaver were found in the Sheriden Cave in Wyandot County, Ohio. Its fossils were first found in the Potter Creek Cave, Shasta County, California. Although the early history of Arctodus is poorly known, it evidently became widespread in North America by the Kansan age about 800,000 years ago.Īrctodus simus first appeared during the middle Pleistocene in North America, about 800,000 years ago, ranging from Alaska to Mississippi, and it became extinct about 11,600 years ago. During the Great American Interchange that followed the joining of North and South America, tremarctines invaded South America, leading to the evolution of Arctotherium and the modern spectacled bear ( Tremarctos ornatus). The short-faced bears belong to a group of bears known as the Tremarctinae, which appeared in North America during the earliest parts of the late Miocene epoch in the form of Plionarctos, a genus considered ancestral to Arctodus. The scientific name of the genus, Arctodus, derives from Greek, and means "bear tooth". This characteristic is also shared by the only living tremarctine bear, the spectacled bear. These species appear to have a disproportionately short snout compared to most modern bears, giving them the name "short-faced." This apparent shortness is an illusion caused by the deep snouts and short nasal bones of tremarctine bears compared with ursine bears Arctodus has a deeper but not a shorter face than most living bears.
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