This ensures that the bear was present until recently in South America and surely throughout the Pleistocene. Obviously those popu;ations have collapsed and subspecoes have gone extinct. As with the cave bear, i am inclined to blame humanity and leave it at that. After all, all bears are vulnerable during hibernization.
Hunters would soon know all such dens and soon enough they will take advantage of this natural vulnerability.
It is only where man is thin on the ground that this can be avoided. After all we leave ours aloni in mountain fastnesses and essentially no where else.
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Skull And Jaw Of Giant Bear Of The Late Pleistocene Found In Buenos Aires
| March 15, 2018 | Archaeology News, News
AncientPages.com – Researchers
in Argentina report they have discovered remains of a giant bear of the
late Pleistocene, near Buenos Aires. It’s an extraordinary find and the
skull and jaw of this giant bear are still almost complete.
The discovery was made on the banks of the Salado River, northwest of
the province of Buenos Aires, a paleontological site has revealed a lot
of fossils in recent weeks.
In an interview with CTYS-UNLaM Agency,
paleontologist of the Museo La Plata and CONICET Leopoldo Soibelzon
explained that find a bear in the Pampean region is an extraordinary
find.
“Finding a carnivore already is an extraordinary finding because they
are always fewer in ecosystems,” said Dr. Soibelzon. He added: “And
within carnivores, the bears are not frequently found, and even less a
complete skull with a jaw, as was found now in Junin.”
According to experts, “it is an excellent material, because the most
frequent thing is to find a tooth, a canine, a phalanx, a piece of a
long bone, but finding a complete skull with jaw is very interesting.”
The giant bear belongs to the genus of the Arctotherium, among which
is the largest specimen of the record. “This material from Junín surely
corresponds to the late Pleistocene, with an age that does not exceed
120 thousand years, while giant bears of greater size existed in South
America during the early Pleistocene, almost a million years ago.”
The largest specimen known, belonging to the species Arctotherium angustidens,
was a carnivore-omnivore that lived 780 thousand years ago and was
discovered in the city of La Plata. “Since the middle of the
Pleistocene, the bears were decreasing in size and, within their
omnivorous diet, they were becoming a little more herbivores, but in
comparison to the size of the current bears, this copy of Junín was also
gigantic,” said Dr. Soibelzon.
“This practically complete skull is missing what would be the right
cheekbone, the zygomatic arch and part of the maxilla; then, it has even
the two mandibular branches, although it also lacks the piece that
joins both mandibles,” Professor José María Marchetto, director of the
Museo del Legado del Salado de Junín said.
For his part, Dr. Luciano Brambilla, a biologist at the National
University of Rosario, agreed that “it is extraordinary to find a fossil
bear, but strikingly, in Junín, another specimen had been found decades
ago; it’s as if two needles had been found in a haystack. ”
According to CTYS-UNLaM Agency, “last Friday, fragments of a phalanx
and a metapodium were found – bones that are part of what would be the
hand or leg of a saber-toothed tiger. The bear and saber-toothed tiger
are presented as the most striking findings in the midst of a large
number of fossils of herbivorous animals that continue to emerge in this
site located northwest of Buenos Aires. There are remains of species
that inhabited the Pampean region towards the end of the Pleistocene,
until its extinction about 10 thousand years ago.”
Scientists are now working to ensure this site is declared a reserve.
It is vital not only to protect the paleontological site, but also the
flora and fauna of the place.
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