What is a Cave Bear?
The cave bear was a Pleistocene animal that evolved a couple million years ago and went extinct at the end of the last Ice Age, about 20,000 years ago. Unlike the more familiar Brown Bear, which only uses caves for hibernation, cave bears spent much more time in caves, as evidenced by fossil finds of this species being mostly in caves. In one cave in Romania, Peştera Urşilor (Bears’ Cave), 140 skeletons of cave bearswere found. This likely denotes several generations of the animal living in the same cave. It is likely that humans are responsible for the extinction of the cave bear, due to competition for the warm shelter of caves. The cave bear would not have given up without a fight, though – the species was about 30% larger than the Brown Bear, with a weight up to one short ton (1000 kg), and a height at the shoulder of 3.5 m. The other difference in appearance was a steeper forehead than that of a Brown Bear. Unlike its contemporary relative, the short-faced American bear Arctodus,
The cave bear was a Pleistocene animal that evolved a couple million years ago and went extinct at the end of the last Ice Age, about 20,000 years ago. Unlike the more familiar Brown Bear, which only uses caves for hibernation, cave bears spent much more time in caves, as evidenced by fossil finds of this species being mostly in caves. In one cave in Romania, PeÅŸtera UrÅŸilor (Bears’ Cave), 140 skeletons of cave bearswere found. This likely denotes several generations of the animal living in the same cave. It is likely that humans are responsible for the extinction of the cave bear, due to competition for the warm shelter of caves. The cave bear would not have given up without a fight, though — the species was about 30% larger than the Brown Bear, with a weight up to one short ton (1000 kg), and a height at the shoulder of 3.5 m. The other difference in appearance was a steeper forehead than that of a Brown Bear. Unlike its contemporary relative, the short-faced American bear Arctod
