tribe
The term tribe is used in many different contexts to refer to a category of human social group. The predominant worldwide usage of the term in English is in the discipline of anthropology. This definition is contested, in part due to confli ...
Ursidae
Bears are carnivoran mammals of the family Ursidae. They are classified as caniforms, or doglike carnivorans. Although only eight species of bears are extant, they are widespread, appearing in a wide variety of habitats throughout the Nort ...
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...
,
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
, and
Asia
Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an are ...
during
Miocene
The Miocene ( ) is the first epoch (geology), geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and mea ...
through
Pliocene
The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.333 million to 2.58Mya, existing for roughly 20.5 million years.
Ursavini was assigned to the
Ursinae
Ursinae is a subfamily of Ursidae (bears) named by Swainson (1835). It was assigned to Ursidae by Bjork (1970), Hunt (1998) and Jin et al. (2007).
Classification
The genera ''Melursus'' and '' Helarctos'' are sometimes also included in ''Ursus' ...
by Hunt (1998) and Jin et al. (2007) and includes the genera ''
Agriotherium
''Agriotherium'' is an extinct genus of bears whose fossils are found in Miocene through Pleistocene-aged strata of North America, Europe, Africa, and Asia. This long-lived genus persisted from at least ~11.6–2.5 Mya. Materials from the late ...
'' and ''
Ursavus
''Ursavus'' is an extinct genus of bear that existed in North America, Europe, and Asia during the Miocene period, about 23–5.3 million years ago (Mya), existing for roughly . The genus apparently dispersed from Asia into North America ab ...
''.C. Jin, R. L. Ciochon, W. Dong, R. M. Hunt, Jr., J. Liu, M. Jaeger, and Q. Zhu. 2007. The first skull of the earliest giant panda. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 104:10932-10937 However in a 2014 paper published on the origins of bears, found ''Agriotherium'' to be closer to extant bears and some species of ''Ursavus'' might warrant to be in a separate but related genus '' Ballusia''.