Ursus deningeri
| Ursus deningeri Temporal range:
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| Skull from Atapuerca | |
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| Species: | Ursus deningeri Linnaeus 1758
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Ursus deningeri (Deninger's bear) is an extinct species of mammal of the family Ursidae (bears), endemic to Europe during the Pleistocene for approximately 1.7 million years, from ~1.8 Mya to 100,000 years ago.
The range of this bear was almost completely confined to the European continent.[1]
Morphology
Ursus deningeri has a combination of primitive and derived characters that distinguishes it from all other Pleistocene bears. Its mandible is slender like that of living brown bears and Ursus etruscus. It also has derived characters of cave bears (Ursus spelaeus) and is considered to be the ancestor of Ursus savini and very close to the common ancestor of brown bears.[2]
Fossil distribution
Sites and specimen ages:
- Nalaikha, Mongolia: ~1.8 Mya to 800,000 years ago
- West Runton Freshwater Bed, Cromer Forest Bed Formation, Norfolk, England: ~800,000–100,000 years ago
- Cueva del Agua, Granada, Spain: ~800,000–100,000 years ago
- Venosa bed excavations 1974–1976, Basilicata, Italy: ~800,000–100,000 years ago
- Emirkaya-2, Central Anatolia, Turkey: ~800,000–100,000 years ago
- Sima de los Huesos, Atapuerca, Spain: >300,000 years ago[3]
- Darband Cave, Alborz, Caspian, Iran: ~300,000–200,000 years ago
Genetics
In 2013, a german team reconstructed the mitochondrial genome of an Ursus deningeri, proving that authentic ancient DNA can be preserved for hundreds of thousand years outside of permafrost.[4]
References
Biglari, F., V. Jahani (2011). "The Pleistocene Human Settlement in Gilan, Southwest Caspian Sea: Recent Research.". Eurasian Prehistory 8 (1–8 (1–2): 3–28.
- ^ The cave bear story: life and death of a vanished animal, Björn Kurtén, Columbia University Press, January 15, 1995
- ^ Nuria García and Juan Luis Arsuaga, Department of Paleontology, Ciudad University, 2001[full citation needed]
- ^ Publication in PNAS.
- ^ Dabney & al. 2013. PNAS. "Complete mitochondrial genome sequence of a Middle Pleistocene cave bear reconstructed from ultrashort DNA fragments" doi: 10.1073/pnas.1314445110 PNAS
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