Bear Evolution

[brotherbear]

The Cave Bear Story... We are now in the Pliocene epoch of earth history, starting some 5 to 6 million years ago. Our stage moves to Roussillon and Perpignan in the south of France ( and a contemporary site in Hungary ), where we find the first member of the genus Ursus. He bears the name 'Ursus minimus', and he is indeed the smallest known member of his genus and the most primitive too. He probably reached about the size of the living sun bear or Malay bear, which is the smallest of the living bears. 
At the time of Ursus minimus, the world was already on the threshold of the Ice Age. The forests where the first Ursus lived were quite different from the subtropical world of the Miocene ursavi.  Reply