Bears of the Pleistocene

[brotherbear]

The Cave Bear Story... The actual business of grasping and chewing is performed by the teeth. Teeth can tell us a great deal about the mode of life of an animal. So let us take a detailed look at the teeth of the cave bear. Bears are members of the order Carnivora, but most bears are far from exclusive carnivorous. They eat a wide range of animal and vegetable matter; they are omnivores, like man and the pig. And their omnovorous habits are reflected in the way that their teeth differ from those of other carnivores.
If the bear trend towards vegetarianism was sidetracked in the polar bear, it seems to have gone on to a veritable culmination in the cave bear. The French paleontologist Albert Gaudry called the cave bear "le moins carnivore des Carnivores et le plus ours des Ours" - the least carnivorous of carnivores, and the most bearish of bears."  Reply