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Tremarctos floridanus

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Not to be confused with Florida black bear.

Tremarctos floridanus
Temporal range: Pleistocene–Holocene
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T. floridanus skeleton
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Carnivora
Family: Ursidae
Genus: Tremarctos
Species:
†T. floridanus
Binomial name
†Tremarctos floridanus
(Gidley, 1928)
Synonyms

Arctodus floridanus Gidley, 1928

Tremarctos floridanus is an extinct species of bear in the family Ursidae, subfamily Tremarctinae. T. floridanus became extinct at the end of the last ice age, 11,000 years ago. It's fossils have been found throughout the Southeastern United States, in northeastern Mexico, and in Belize from the Rancholabrean epoch (250,000–11,000 years ago), and from earlier epochs at some sites in western North America.

Names[edit]

Tremarctos floridanus is called the Florida spectacled bear, Florida cave bear, or rarely Florida short-faced bear.

Description[edit]

T. floridanus is presumed to closely resemble its modern relative that shares the same genus, the spectacled bear (Tremarctos ornatus) found in the Andes Mountains of South America. Intermediate in size between the a modern American black bear and grizzly bear, it was noticeably larger than its South American relation though still much smaller than the fellow Tremarctinae bear Arctodus[1]. Arctodus was a contemporary of and shared its habitat with T. floridanus. Despite one such common name, T. floridanus is not considered a close relative of the cave bear, Ursus spelaeus, which belonged to a different genus.

Like modern spectacled bears, T. floridanus was omnivorous and likely subsisted chiefly on plant material with a majority of animal matter consumed being carrion. Similar to modern American black bear that shares its habitat today; insects, fish, small animals, and hoofed animals such a young deer might have also been hunted on occasion.

Taxonomy[edit]

Originally, Gidley named this animal Arctodus floridanus in 1928. It was recombined as T. floridanus by Kurten (1963), Lundelius (1972) and Kurten and Anderson (1980).[2][3] The type specimen was found in the Golf Course site of the Melbourne Bone Bed in Melbourne, Florida.[4] The closest living relative of the Florida cave bear is the spectacled bear of South America; they are classified together with the huge short-faced bears in the subfamily Tremarctinae.

Range[edit]

T. floridanus was widely distributed south of the continental ice sheet from Florida along the Gulf Coast through Texas to Nuevo León and north to South Carolina and Tennessee during the Rancholabrean epoch (250,000–11,000 years ago). A few fossil specimens have been reported from the Irvingtonian (2.5 million–250,000 years ago) and Blancan (4.75–1.8 million years ago) epochs in western North America,[5][4] although western specimens have not been found in the Rancholabrean.[6] Fossils of T. floridanus have been reported from two sites in Belize, at least one of which is also Rancholabrean.[7][8] While once thought to have had a possible continuation into the Greenlandian stage of the Holocene from presumed 8,000 years old material from the Devil's Den Cave,[9] subsequent research indicates the fossils present were from the Rancholabrean epoch instead[10].

Fossils of T. floridanus have been found at the following sites:

References[edit]

  1. ^ "Tremarctos floridanus". Florida Vertebrate Fossils. Retrieved 5 July 2024.
  2. ^ E. L. Lundelius. 1972. Bureau of Economic Geology Report of Investigations 77.
  3. ^ Kurtén and Anderson: 178-80
  4. ^ a b c d e f Harrington, Arianna (April 10, 2015). "Tremarctos floridanus". Florida Museum (University of Florida). Archived from the original on October 30, 2021. Retrieved February 26, 2022.
  5. ^ Kurtén, B.; Anderson, E. Pleistocene Mammals of North America. Columbia University Press. ISBN 0230613993.
  6. ^ Lucas, Spencer G.; Sullivan, Robert M. Vertebrate Paleontology in New Mexico: Bulletin 68. New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science.
  7. ^ a b Czaplewski, Nicolas J.; Krejca, Jean; Miller, Thomas E. (2003). "Late Quaternary Bats from Cebada Cave, Chiquibul Cave System,Belize" (PDF). Caribbean Journal of Science. 39: 23 – via Belize Foundation for Research and Environmental Education.
  8. ^ a b c Churcher, C. S. (March 2020). "Pleistocene mammals from Extinction Cave, Belize". Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences. 57 (3): 366–376. Bibcode:2020CaJES..57..366C. doi:10.1139/cjes-2018-0178. S2CID 182629185.
  9. ^ Kurtén and Anderson: 56, 178-79
  10. ^ Purdy, Barbara A.; Rohlwing, Kathryn M.; MacFadden, Bruce J. (2015-07-01). "Devil's Den, Florida: Rare Earth Element Analysis Indicates Contemporaneity of Humans and Latest Pleistocene Fauna". PaleoAmerica. 1 (3): 266–275. doi:10.1179/2055556315Z.00000000032. ISSN 2055-5563.
  11. ^ a b c "Tremarctos floridanus-Florida spectacled bear". UTEP Biodiversity Collections. 3 April 2013. Retrieved February 27, 2022.
  12. ^ Carr, Robert S. (2012). Digging Miami. Gainesville, Florida: University Press of Florida. p. 32. ISBN 978-0-8130-4206-0.
  13. ^ Purdy, Barbara A. (2008). Florida's People During the Last Ice Age. Gainesville, Florida: University Press of Florida. ISBN 978-0-8130-3204-7.
  14. ^ a b c Sanders, Albert E. (2002). "Additions to the Pleistocene Mammal Faunas of South Carolina, North Carolina, and Georgia". Transactions of the American Philosophical Society. 92, Part 5: 33–40. ISBN 9780871699251 – via Google Books.
  15. ^ Kurtén, Björn (June 1, 1963). "Fossil Bears from Texas" (PDF). The Pearce-Sellard Series (1): 13 – via University of Texas Libraries.
  16. ^ "Tremarctos sp., Bear tooth". The Charleston Museum. Retrieved February 27, 2022.
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