Tremarctos floridanus, occasionally called the Florida spectacled bear, Florida cave bear, or rarely Florida short-faced bear, is an extinct species of bear in the family Ursidae, subfamily Tremarctinae. T. floridanus was endemic to North America from the Pliocene to the end of the Pleistocene epoch (4.9 million–12,000 years ago), existing for approximately 4.9 million years.
Environment[]
T. floridanus was widely distributed south of the continental ice sheet, along the Gulf Coast through Florida, north to Tennessee, and across the southern United States to California.
Arctodus (3 million–11,000 years ago) was a contemporary and shared its habitat with T. floridanus. The closest living relative of the Florida cave bear is the spectacled bear of South America; they are classified together with the huge short-faced bears in the subfamily Tremarctinae. They became extinct at the end of the last ice age, 10,000 years ago (possibly as late as 8,000 years ago at Devil's Den in Florida), due to some combination of climate change and hunting by newly arrived Paleo-Indians.
Taxonomy[]
Originally, Gidley named this animal Arctodus floridanus in 1928. It was recombined as T. floridanus by Kurten (1963), Lundelius (1972) and Kurten and Anderson (1980).
Fossil distribution[]
Sites and specimen ages (not complete):
- Arroyo Seco (CU 45), Palm Spring Formation, San Diego County, California 4.9–1.8 Mya
- Cumberland Cave, Allegany County, Maryland 1.8 million–300,000 years ago
- Cutler Fossil Site, Miami-Dade County, Florida 120,000—12,000 years ago
- Devil's Den Cave, Marion County, Florida about 8,000 years ago
- Lecanto 2A site, Citrus County, Florida paleontological sites, about 300,000–11,000 years ago
- Ladd's Quarry Site, Bartow County, Georgia 1.8 million–11,000 years ago
- Rock Spring Site, Orange County, Florida about 100,000–11,000 years ago