The steppe brown bear (''Ursus arctos priscus'') is a disputed extinct
subspecies
In biological classification, subspecies is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (morphology), but that can successfully interbreed. Not all species ...
of
brown bear that lived in
Eurasia during either the
Pleistocene or the early
Holocene epochs, but its geological age is uncertain.
[Villalba de Alvarado, M., Collado Giraldo, H., Arsuaga, J. L., Bello Rodrigo, J. R., Heteren, A. H., & Gómez‐Olivencia, A. (2021). Looking for the earliest evidence of Ursus arctos LINNAEUS, 1758 in the Iberian Peninsula: the Middle Pleistocene site of Postes cave. Boreas, 51(1), 159–184. https://doi.org/10.1111/bor.12537] Fossils of the bear have been found in various
caves in
Slovakia, particularly those of
Vazec,
Vyvieranie,
Lisková,
Kupcovie Izbicka, and
Okno.
It is argued that the species should be rendered invalid, as its geological age is unclear and "its skull is identical to modern ''U. arctos''."
[Pacher, M. (2007). The type specimen of Ursus priscus Goldfuss, 1810 and the uncertain status of Late Pleistocene brown bears. Neues Jahrbuch f€ur Geologie und Pal€aontologie, Abhandlungen 245, 331–339.]
Description
Adult males in average would have weighed , with the largest individuals weighing up to .
[Marciszak, A., Schouwenburg, C., Lipecki, G., Talamo, S., Shpansky, A., Malikov, D., & Gornig, W. (2019). Steppe brown bear Ursus arctos “priscus” from the Late Pleistocene of Europe. Quaternary International, 534, 158–170. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2019.02.042] It was more carnivorous than a modern brown bear, consuming of meat per day.
References
Extinct bears
Pleistocene bears
Pleistocene carnivorans
Pleistocene extinctions
Pleistocene mammals of Europe
Fossils of Slovakia
Fossil taxa described in 1818
{{Paleo-carnivora-stub