Bear Evolution

[brotherbear]

The Cave bear Story... The pendulum swings again: cold conditions are back. The Gunz glaciation reached its culmination some 800,000 to 900,000 years before the present. There is some evidence that in one of the cold phases that make up the Gunz, longer-limbed bears, perhaps from the East, pressed into Europe to supplant temporarily the stocky-legged Savin's bear, but the problem of whether this intruder was a distinct species or just a steppe race of the early cave bear has not been settled. The latter alternative appears perhaps the most likely one. 
The ice melts and the world is green once more as the wind of the Cromerian interglacial blows over the European scene. And man meets bear. 
The bear of the Cromerian may well be regarded as a full-fledged cave bear. True, it is still a little smaller, although clearly larger and longer-jawed than its ancestor the Savin's bear. Also, the vaulting of its forehead is less prominent and its grinders are not quite as expanded as in the late Pleistocene animal. And so it has been given a species name of its own, and is known as 'Deninger's bear', Ursus deningeri. But there is much to say for just regarding it as an early, primitive race of Ursus spelaeus. We may compromise by calling it Deninger's cave bear.    Reply