Cave bear

The cave bear is an extinct, prehistoric type of bear. There were at least two species of cave bears: Ursus spelaeus and Ursus deningeri.^[1] Some scientists think there were up to 6 different species.^[2][3]

Reconstruction of a European cave bear

Scientists use the term "cave bear" to describe this animal because most cave bear fossils have been found in caves. The animals probably used caves to hibernate.^[4]

Cave bear fossils have been found in England, Belgium, Germany, Russia, Spain, Italy, and Greece.^[1] In European caves, archeologists have found fossils from over 100,000 cave bears.^[1]

Timeline

Scientists think that both the cave bear and the brown bear descended from the Etruscan bear (Ursus etruscus).^[5] The last common ancestor of cave bears and brown bears lived between 1.2–1.4 million years ago.^[6]

The cave bear lived in Europe and Asia during the Pilocene Epoch (which lasted from around 5.3 million to 2.6 million years ago) and the Pleistocene Epoch (2.6 million to 11,700 years ago).^[1]

It became extinct by around 28,000 to 27,000 years ago.^[1] This was a slow, gradual process, not a sudden extinction. Humans sometimes hunted the cave bear, but not enough to cause its extinction.^[1]

Description

The cave bear's skeleton was similar to the modern brown bear's.^[7] The cave bear measured up to 2 meters (6.6 feet) long.^[8] Male cave bears weighed around 350 to 600 kg (770 to 1,320 lb).^[9] Females weighed 225 to 250 kg (495 to 550 lb).^[10]

Diet

Several studies have looked at cave bear fossils to determine what its diet was like.

In a 2009 study, scientists examined the wear patterns on cave bear fossil teeth. According to this study:^[11]

A dental microwear analysis of 43 young and adult individuals demonstrate that ... cave bears from Goyet [Cave] (Late Pleistocene, Belgium) were not strictly herbivorous, but had a mixed diet composed of hard items (e.g., possibly bone), invertebrates (e.g., insects), meat (ungulates, small vertebrates), and/or plant matter (hard mast, seeds, herbaceous vegetations, and fruits).

However, another study analyzed the remains from 6 cave bears, found in Romania. It showed that these six bears ate a completely vegetarian diet.^[12]

Tubers and other gritty food were probably not part of the cave bear's diet.^[13] They definitely ate seed fruits.^[14]