Paleontologist Leopoldo Soibelzon holds an upper arm bone of the giant bear next to an elephant's. [ Photograph courtesy Leopoldo Soibelzon ]
Posted on 05/20/2012 8:01:48 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
There's a new titleholder for the biggest, baddest bear ever found.
A prehistoric South American giant short-faced bear tipped the scales at up to 3,500 pounds (1,600 kilograms) and towered at least 11 feet (3.4 meters) standing up, according to a new study.
The previous heavyweight was a North American giant short-faced bear -- a related extinct species -- that weighed up to 2,500 pounds (1,134 kilograms). The largest bear on record in modern times was a 2,200-pound (998-kilogram) polar bear shot in Alaska in the 19th century.
The South American giant short-faced bear roamed its namesake continent about 500,000 to 2 million years ago and would have been the largest and most powerful meat-eater on land at the time, scientists say...
The bear skeleton, found in Buenos Aires Province, Argentina, in 1935, was recently reexamined by Schubert and study co-author Leopoldo Soibelzon, a paleontologist from Argentina who specializes in South American fossil bears.
By measuring its almost elephant-size humerus, or upper arm bone, the team was able to calculate the size of the rest of the bear's body, Schubert said.
Their analysis also revealed that the animal was an old male that had endured several serious injuries throughout his life...
In South America, Schubert suspects, a glut in prey and a lack of competition combined to make the bear king of the continent...
In North America, the short-faced bear's increasing size may have offered an advantage -- its sheer heft may have scared off saber-toothed cats and other predators from their kills, the researchers speculate.
And the short-faced bear's reign in North America would have also coincided with an explosion in Ice Age megafauna, such as giant ground sloths, camels, and mammoths -- all potential new food sources.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.nationalgeographic.com ...
Paleontologist Leopoldo Soibelzon holds an upper arm bone of the giant bear next to an elephant's. [ Photograph courtesy Leopoldo Soibelzon ]
Battle royale: Prehistoric cave bears versus cave lions
BBC | May 23, 2011 | Matt Walker
Posted on 05/23/2011 5:23:23 PM PDT by decimon
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2724054/posts
DNA frozen in permafrost muck reveals ancient ecosystems
Montreal Gazette | November 19, 2011 | Ed Struzik
Posted on 11/21/2011 6:15:14 PM PST by Renfield
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2810701/posts
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| GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach | |
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Thanks Renfield. |
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They call it a “meat eater”. Outside of Polar Bears, most bears that I am familiar with are quite omnivorous, and enjoy their huckleberries and honey greatly.
But I think this stuff generally falls into the area of "unsubstantiated guesswork".
‘Ey Booboo, bigger than the average bear....
No *wonder* he had every freakin’ picnic basket before it was dark.
This is one bear that could s*** in the woods.....or any other place it damned well pleased.
Starving bears eat two men in RussiaActually, the Kamchatka bear is a variety of brown bear (not grizzly), usually larger and heavier that the North American variety.
KTRK-TV Houston, TX
Wednesday, July 23, 2008MOSCOW, Russia -- A pack of enormous bears searching for food killed and ate two men at mines in Russia's Pacific Kamchatka region and have kept hundreds of geologists and miners from reaching the mine, news agencies reported Wednesday.
A pack of up to 30 Kamchatka bears -- which are similar to grizzlies -- prowled around two mines of a local platinum mining company where they killed the two guards on Thursday, local officials were quoted by the Russian ITAR-Tass news agency as saying.
About 400 company workers have refused to return to the mines for fear of the bears, which stand 10 feet (three meters) tall on their hind legs and weigh up to 1,500 pounds (700 kilograms), Interfax reported.
(snip)
When he sits around the cave, he sits *around the cave*.
Great Thread! Thanks!
Is this the same species as the extinct “Cave Bear” in Germany? Caves were evacuated there for phosphate during WW2, and many Cave Bear Skeletons were uncovered and described.
Military choppers with machine guns should be sufficient to solve that one. :’)
Thanks Graewoulf!
These bears were different. I believe they concluded they must have been mainly meat eaters, becasue they couldn’t sustain that size in that ecosystem without eating a lot of meat.
No, short-faced bears were strictly New World animals.
Thanks for the ping....amazing stuff.
No, these are "educated guesses", in which various clues like the wear patterns on the teeth, types of teeth, fossilized scat, claw types and wear patterns, etc., provide evidence about the diet of the animal involved. These characteristics can be compared to those of currently living species to build a picture of what the ancient animals were like.
LOVE IT! “500. Must be a peach of a hand.”
Wonder what type of pepper spray would work best on these critters?
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