Agriotherium (all species)

[Gorilla king]

Agriotherium is an extinct genus of bears whose fossils are found in Miocene through Pleistocene-aged strata of North America, Europe, Africa, and Asia. This long-lived genus persisted from at least ~11.6–2.5 Mya.[2] Materials from the late-surviving A. africanum in Africa have suggested that A. africanum died out during the early Gelasian.[3]




Species

†A. myanmarensis (Ogino et al., 2011)
†A. insigne (Gervais, 1859)
†A. inexpetans (Qiu et al., 1991)
†A. palaeindicus (Lydekker, 1878)
†A. sivalensis (Falconer & Cautley, 1836)
†A. africanum (Hendey, 1972)
†A. coffeyi (Dalquest, 1986)
†A. gregoryi (Frick, 1926)
†A. schneideri (Sellards, 1916)

Description and diet


Mandible

Agriotherium measured up to 2.7 metres (9 ft) in body length and weighed around 900 kilograms (1,980 lb), making it larger than most living bears. Along with other large bears such as the cave bear, short-faced bears Arctodus and Arctotherium, and an extinct subspecies of the modern polar bear Ursus maritimus tyrannus, Agriotherium was among the largest known terrestrial members of Carnivora. They had longer legs and shorter faces than other bears, and were more lightly built. Their wide, short jaws could generate enormous bite force. It is not certain how this force was used by the living animal; a study designed to determine how the genus fed discovered that among living bears, the lowest bite force belongs to the predatory polar bear, which feeds largely on blubber, and the highest bite force belongs to the giant panda, a herbivore which uses it to crush bamboo. Shortened jaws with high bite forces are found in other mammals like Gelada baboons that eat grasses but evolved from non-grazing ancestors, and in bone-crushing scavengers, like spotted hyenas and borphagine dogs.[4][5]

Analysis of the teeth, jaw, and tooth wear patterns identifies Agriotherium as an omnivore that ate a lot of plant material. Though its teeth do not show adaptations for a carnivorous diet, isotope evidence suggests it did eat a significant amount of animal material, similar to some populations of modern brown bears. Several studies of the skeleton, including a comparison with Hemicyon ursinus, a fossil bear widely accepted as a predator, show that Agriotherium did not have the limb strength or speed needed for active hunting, either by ambush or by chasing down prey. It also did not show the long claws and increased forelimb strength typical of mammals that dig for food. These very large bears may have specialized on a combination of grazing, eating fruit and invertebrate food in season, and intimidating predators away from carcasses in order to scavenge meat and bone marrow.[6]

Very large size would have been necessary to steal and defend kills in environments dominated by some of the most powerful carnivorous mammals that have ever lived, such as the sabertooth cat Amphimachairodus, with whom it shared territory in both Afro-Eurasia and North America, and the bone-cracking canid Epicyon and the massive feliform sabertooth Barbourofelis, which it lived alongside in Texas, as evidenced by fossil deposits at Coffee Ranch.[7][8]

Fossil distributionEdit

Sites and age of specimens:

American Cyanimid Company site, Bone Valley Formation, Polk County, Florida ~13.7—11.6 Ma.Venta del Moro, Spain ~9–5.3 Ma.Lang. E Quarry, South Africa ~5.3–3.6 Ma.Carlin High Quarry, Elko County, Nevada ~23–5.3 Ma.Vialette, Haute Loire, France ~3.2–2.5 Ma.Middle Awash, Ethiopia ~11.6–3.6 Ma.

Agriotherium ranged widely; fossils of four or more species have been found in Europe, Myanmar, China, North America and South Africa.[9] It is the only ursoid known to have colonized sub-Saharan Africa.[10]


en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriotherium

[Gorilla king]

PREHISTORIC WILDLIFE




Name: Agriotherium (Sour beast).
Phonetic: Ag-ree-o-fee-ree-um.
Named By: Wagner - 1837.
Synonyms: Agriotherium coffeyi, Hyaenarctos.
Classification: Chordata, Mammalia, Carnivora, Arctoidea, Ursidae, Ursinae.
Species: T. sivalensis (type), T. africanum, T. hendeyi, T. inexpetans, T. schneideri.
Diet: Probably an Omnivore.
Size: Approximately 2.7 meters long and up to around 650 kilograms.
Known locations: Across Africa, Eurasia and North America.
Time period: Serravalian of the Miocene through to the Piacenzian of the Pliocene.
Fossil representation: Multiple individuals.

One of the better known bears in the worlds fossil record, the Agriotherium genus is also easily one of the largest currently known. With this large size it would be tempting to portray Agriotherium as a savage killers of any animal that might be unfortunate enough to be in its way, yet like with its more famous relative Arctodus (better known as the giant short faced bear) first impressions may in this case be deceptive. The post cranial skeleton of Agriotherium is that of a large but relatively underpowered animal that simply does not seem to have the skeletal framework necessary to cope with high stresses, such as those expected to be encountered while undergoing extreme physical exertion (i.e. catching and subduing struggling prey). The second clue is that Agriotherium has a proportionately short snout to that seen in many other bears. The advantages of having a short snout are simple, it means that whatever is being bitten, is closer to the point of jaw articulation (fulcrum) so that greater force can be brought to bear (no pun intended) against it.
       These are all features that are common to Arctodus which also has isotopic analysis of its bones revealing that it was eating nearly every type of animal in its ecosystem, something very unusual for a predator, but common for a scavenger. Given the superficial similarity in form between Agriotherium and Arctodus, it’s reasonable to speculate that Agriotherium may have been a specialised scavenger, a theory that is becoming increasingly put forward for Arctodus. Again, the concept is very simple, by being bigger than any other predator on the land, Agriotherium could in effect bully the smaller predators away from their kills. This draws parallels in bear/wolf interaction that is observed in the wild even today, where grizzly bears will watch a pack of wolves bring down a prey animal, just to charge on in and drive them off after they have done all of the work for it. This fits with the surprisingly gracile skeleton of a large animal like Agriotherium, since if it was letting other predators do the work and the killing for it, why waste precious nutrients and calories upon developing and maintaining a skeleton stronger than it needed to be?
       Another thing to consider is that if Agriotherium was a scavenger then it was likely getting to carcasses after all of the choice pieces of meat had been consumed with perhaps only bones being left. This would probably not be enough to thwart Agriotherium from a meal however since the short snout, strong jaw closing muscles and robust construction of the skull and jaws were all the things that Agriotherium needed to develop massive bite force. Computer modelling in a 2012 study (see links below) confirmed that Agriotherium had one of the largest bite forces known amongst the members of the Carnivora (A group of mammals that includes dogs, bears, cats, pinnipeds etc which are specially adapted to exist by eating meat). By being able to crack open bones, Agriotherium could access and eat the bone marrow within, and for those not familiar, bone marrow is one of the most nutritious parts of an animal, and can last for several years after an animals death when encased inside of the bones.
       The idea of Agriotherium being what is termed a ‘hyper-carnivore’ is plausible, though it is not certain that Agriotherium only ate meat. Like with bears today, Agriotherium may have also supplemented its diet with fruits and certain plants, particularly tougher ones that required strong jaws. However the scavenger theory does actually fit better with Agriotherium in terms of the age of known fossils. Agriotherium first appears just after halfway through the Miocene before disappearing at the end of the Pliocene. The similar Arctodus however begins to appear in the Pliocene before becoming most numerous during the Pleistocene. It might be that Agriotherium was one of the first specialised scavenger bears but was eventually replaced in the worlds ecosystems by more advanced versions that form separate genera, as well as possibly other bone crunching animals such as hyena.


www.prehistoric-wildlife.com/species/a/agriotherium.html

[Gorilla king]

Researchers Chew Over a Prehistoric Bear's Diet

Of all the bears to come and go during the group’s 23 million year old history, none had a bite more powerful than Agriotherium africanum – a ursid as large as today’s grizzly and polar bears that roamed Africa during the latest Miocene and earliest Pliocene epochs. In a new Journal of Zoology paper by […]



Paleontologists have been debating the diet of deep-skulled bears - such as Arctodus pictured here - for decades. Were bears such as Arctodus and Agriotherium predators, scavengers, herbivores, or some combination of the three? Art by Oscar San-Isidro, from Figueirido et al., 2010.PALEONTOLOGISTS HAVE BEEN DEBATING THE DIET OF DEEP-SKULLED BEARS - SUCH AS ARCTODUS PICTURED HERE - FOR DECADES. WERE BEARS SUCH AS ARCTODUS AND AGRIOTHERIUM PREDATORS, SCAVENGERS, HERBIVORES, OR SOME COMBINATION OF THE THREE? ART BY OSCAR SAN-ISIDRO, FROM FIGUEIRIDO ET AL., 2010.

OF ALL THE bears to come and go during the group’s 23 million year old history, none had a bite more powerful than Agriotherium africanum – a ursid as large as today’s grizzly and polar bears that roamed Africa during the latest Miocene and earliest Pliocene epochs. In a new Journal of Zoology paper by C.C. Oldfield, Colin McHenry, and colleagues, virtual models used to run bite tests predicted that the fossil bear could bring its canines down with 4566 Newtons of force – the equivalent of about one thousand pounds of pressure. The question is why this huge extinct bear required such a powerful bite.

For some prehistoric creatures, it isn’t difficult to envision their feeding habits. Tyrannosaurus rex undoubtedly clamped its heavily-fanged jaws on struggling Edmontosaurus and rotting Triceratops, and so the dinosaur’s overwhelming bite strength makes sense given its hypercarnivorous lifestyle. But the connection between skull anatomy, bite force, and diet isn’t always so clear.

The skull of Agriotherium africanum looks like that of a dedicated carnivore. Much like Arctodus – a similarly-proportioned but distantly-related bear from the Pleistocene of North America – Agriotherium had a relatively broad, deep skull well-suited to handling the stresses and strains created by large, struggling prey. Then again, the same suite of features could have just as readily been employed to dismember carcasses or crunch tough plants, and some researchers have argued that Agriotherium, Arctodus, and similar bears were omnivores that often fed on carrion rather than chasing down large prey.

As Oldfield and co-authors point out, the remarkably high bite force Agriotherium brought to bear doesn't allow us to distinguish between the hunting and scavenging alternatives. Having a powerful bite is just as useful to an active predator as to a saprovore. And modern bears only complicate efforts to reconstruct the lifestyle of Agriotherium.

When the researchers investigated the mechanical properties of skulls representing a giant panda, a brown bear, an American black bear, an Asian black bear, and a polar bear, there was no indication that bite force, alone, predicted carnivory. Quite the contrary. The mostly-herbivorous giant panda had the strongest bite force for its size, while the hypercarnivorous polar bear had among the lowest proportional bite force. In fact, Oldfield and collaborators deemed the polar bear as “among the poorest performers” in terms of being able to handle the stresses involved with killing and consuming large prey. Maybe this is because the polar bear eats a great deal of blubber from prey that can’t put up much of a fight on land, the researchers suggest, but the main point is that there is not a simple connection between being a predator and having a strong bite.

Despite the similarities between the Agriotherium and giant panda models, though, Oldfield and collaborators don’t think that the fossil bear was an herbivore. The cheek teeth of Agriotherium are better suited to slicing than to grinding vegetation, hinting that the bear regularly dined on flesh. What remains unknown was how Agriotherium acquired that meat. “A. africanum was more than capable of dispatching very large vertebrate prey,” the researchers write, “but this does not mean that it did.” Like so many debates in paleontology, we are left trying to untangle what an animal was capable of from what that creature actually did.


www.wired.com/2012/10/researchers-chew-over-a-prehistoric-bears-diet/

[Gorilla king]

Finite element analysis of ursid cranial mechanics and the prediction of feeding behaviour in the extinct giant Agriotherium africanum


Abstract

Historically, predicting ursid feeding behaviour on the basis of morphometric and mechanical analyses has proven difficult. Here, we apply three-dimensional finite element analysis to models representing five extant and one fossil species of bear. The ability to generate high bite forces, and for the skull to sustain them, is present in both the giant panda and the gigantic extinct Agriotherium africanum. Bite forces for A. africanum are the highest predicted for any mammalian carnivore. Our findings do not resolve whether A. africanum was more likely a predator on, or scavenger of, large terrestrial vertebrates, but show that its skull was well-adapted to resist the forces generated in either activity. The possibility that A. africanum was adapted to process tough vegetation is discounted. Results suggest that the polar bear is less well-adapted to dispatch large prey than all but one of the five other species considered.



Results

Bite force

In absolute terms, bite force at the canines is greatest in A. africanum (4566 N) and least in the Asian bear (1217 N). Bite force adjusted for body mass (bite force quotient, BFQ) was much higher in A. africanum and the giant panda than in any other species/specimens (Table 1). Lowest values for BFQ were for the Asian bear and the polar bear.


zslpublications.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1469-7998.2011.00862.x

[Gorilla king]

AGRIOTHERIUM AFRICANUM SKULL-5 MILLION YEARS AGO, CAPE PROVINCE, SOUTH AFRICA:

[Gorilla king]

[Gorilla king]

Tooth Root Morphology in the Early Pliocene African Bear Agriotherium africanum (Mammalia, Carnivora, Ursidae) and its Implications for Feeding Ecology

Abstract

Tooth root surface areas serve as proxies for bite force potentials, and by extension, dietary specialization in extant carnivorans. Here, we investigate the feeding ecology of the extinct large-bodied ursid Agriotherium africanum, by comparing its root surface areas (reconstructed with the aid of computed tomography and three-dimensional image processing) and bite force estimates, with those of extant carnivorans. Results show that in absolute terms, canine and carnassial bite forces, as well as root surface areas were highest in A. africanum. However, when adjusted for skull size, A. africanum’s canine roots were smaller than those of extant solitary predators. With teeth being the limiting factor in the masticatory system, low canine root surface areas suggest that A. africanum would have struggled to bring down large vertebrate prey. Its adjusted carnassial root sizes were found to be smaller than those of extant hard object feeders and the most carnivorous tough object feeders, but larger than those of extant omnivorous ursids and Ursus maritimus. This and the fact that it displayed its highest postcanine root surface areas in the carnassial region (rather than the most distal tooth in the tooth row) suggest that A. africanum consumed more vertebrate tissue than extant omnivorous ursids. With an apparent inability to routinely bring down large prey or to consume mechanically demanding skeletal elements, its focus was most likely on tough tissue, which it acquired by actively scavenging the carcasses of freshly dead/freshly killed animals. Mechanically less demanding skeletal elements would have been a secondary food source, ingested and processed mainly in association with muscle and connective tissue.


www.researchgate.net/publication/257591973_Tooth_Root_Morphology_in_the_Early_Pliocene_African_Bear_Agriotherium_africanum_Mammalia_Carnivora_Ursidae_and_its_Implications_for_Feeding_Ecology

[Gorilla king]

SKULLS OF AGRIOTHERIUM AFRICANUM:

[Gorilla king]

Diverse diets of the Mio-Pliocene carnivorans of Langebaanweg, South Africa


Abstract and Figures

The Mio-Pliocene guild of carnivorans of Langebaanweg (LBW), South Africa, is phylogenetically and ecologically diverse. Unlike modern African fauna, this fossil sample contains a large ursid; although there are mustelids, herpestids and viverrids in Africa today, some of the LBW members of those families were much larger than their modern confamilials. There were also numerous felid species, including some that possess a more sabretoothed dental morphology, as well as several species of hyaenids that were very different from their modern confamilials. Questions remain about the dietary morphospace occupied by these fossils. Which taxa were predominately durophagous and which were the most hypercarnivorous? Did the level of durophagy and hypercarnivory in the LBW taxa reach the level of specialisation found in modern carnivores? In the current study, we evaluate the dietary specialisations of all the large terrestrial LBW carnivorans through analysis of the radii-of-curvature and intercuspid notches present in the mandibular dentition. We found that the LBW carnivorans had less sharp premolars than do their modern confamilials – an indication of greater durophagy. However, some families contain individuals with more extreme intercuspid notch patterns, indicating greater hypercarnivory. The ursid also possessed a suite of morphology unlike any modern carnivoran, exhibiting some morphology conducive to durophagy and some that places it functionally among the most hypercarnivorous of modern carnivorans. Thus it was likely capable of consuming high levels of both flesh and bone.


www.researchgate.net/publication/305661593_Diverse_diets_of_the_Mio-Pliocene_carnivorans_of_Langebaanweg_South_Africa

[Gorilla king]

AGRIOTHERIUM AFRICANUS SKULL:

[Gorilla king]

A New Species of Agriotherium from North America, and Implications for Understanding Transformations in the Metaconid-Entoconid Complex of Bears


Abstract and Figures

New material of Agriotherium from the late Hemphillian (~6 Ma) Quiburis Formation in Arizona, North America is reported. These specimens represent a new species, Agriotherium hendeyi, sp. nov., of small size and with a bucco-lingually narrow lower dentition distinguishing it from North American “Agriotherium” schneideri as well as the genotype and other Old World species of Agriotherium. Strikingly, the m1 metaconid-entoconid complex of the new species exhibits a morphologically transitional state between the pattern observed in Indarctos (three cusps) and the typical Agriotherium pattern (two cusps). Together with a review of the variation in A. africanum, a geometric morphometric analysis permits identification and discussion of a proposed transformation pathway from the Indarctos pattern to the Agriotherium pattern. It is shown that the two cusps in the metaconid-entoconid complex in Agriotherium correspond to the two entoconids in Indarctos, whereas the ancestral metaconid is reduced or lost in Agriotherium. From a developmental perspective, the metaconid fused to the anterior entoconid as a result of the shortening of the talonid, rather than via replacement of the metaconid by a posterior shift of the entoconid, presumably under selective pressure towards a more typically hypercarnivorous tooth morphology and carnivorous diet.


www.researchgate.net/publication/335276057_A_New_Species_of_Agriotherium_from_North_America_and_Implications_for_Understanding_Transformations_in_the_Metaconid-Entoconid_Complex_of_Bears

[Gorilla king]

THE HYENA BEAR, AGRIOTHERIUM INSIGNE:





books.google.com/books?id=dEMrDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA119&dq=Agriotherium+Insigne&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwit1Z7079TrAhXFp1kKHVysCgIQ6AEwAHoECAEQAQ#v=onepage&q=Agriotherium%20Insigne&f=false

[Gorilla king]

Agriotherium schneideri from the Hemphillian of Central Mexico


Abstract and Figures

A well-preserved upper and lower dentition of Agriotherium schneideri from the late Tertiary of Guanajuato, Mexico, permits a better understanding of this poorly known bear. Other North American species have been assigned to this genus, but only A. schneideri is here considered valid. Despite scant material, it appears that this ursid displayed a wide range of variability in its dentition. Paucity of specimens indicates that Agriotherium and its contemporary, Indarctos, were less common in the New World than in the Old World. True carnassials and massive, potentially bone-crushing cheekteeth imply that both genera were active predator-scavengers rather than more passive omnivores with a mostly herbivorous diet. The brief geologic time range of Agriotherium in North America makes it a useful biochronologic marker, albeit on a limited basis due to scarcity of specimens.


www.researchgate.net/publication/272595545_Agriotherium_schneideri_from_the_Hemphillian_of_Central_Mexico

[Gorilla king]

New species of Agriotherium (Mammalia, Carnivora) from the late Miocene to early Pliocene of central Myanmar


... The geological age of the Chaingzauk fauna was originally proposed to be Late Miocene to Early Pliocene by Pilgrim (1939) and was recently reconfirmed as near the boundary between the Late Miocene and the Early Pliocene by the presence of the combination of the following mammal taxa (Table 1): Agriotherium myanmarensis (Ursidae, Carnivora), Hystrix paukensis (Hystricidae, Rodentia), Dorcatherium cf. anthracotherioides (Tragulidae, Artiodactyla), Microbunodon milaensis and Merycopotamus dissimilis (Anthracotheriidae, Artiodactyla), Sivachoerus prior and Propotamochoerus hysudricus (Suidae, Artiodactyla), and Hexaprotodon sivalensis and H. iravaticus (Hippopotamidae, Artiodactyla) (Pickford, 1988;van der Made, 1999;Barry et al., 2002Barry et al., , 2007Badgley et al., 2008;Thaung-Htike, 2008;Nishioka et al., 2011;Ogino et al., 2011;Zin-Maung-Maung-Thein et al., 2011;Tsubamoto et al., 2012). ...

... All of the colobine fossils described here were collected in Myokhinthar, but several important, index taxa (Agriotherium, Sivachoerus, Propotamochoerus) and many bovids were discovered from Chaingzauk. Although it is hard to correlate the sediments of the two regions because of the complicated fluvial sedimentary structure (Fig. 2), these two regions are regarded as being almost similar in age based on the mammalian fossils and overall geological setting (Zin-Maung- Maung-Thein, 2010;Nishioka et al., 2011;Ogino et al., 2011;Zin-Maung-Maung-Thein et al., 2011). (Table 2). ...

... The Chaingzauk and Gwebin faunas, both of which produced colobine fossils, have been studied by the MyanmareJapan joint research teams since 2002 (Thaung-Htike et al., 2005, 2008Takai et al., 2006, in press;Zin-Maung-Maung-Thein, 2010Nishioka et al., 2011;Ogino et al., 2011;Tsubamoto et al., 2012;Nishioka, 2013). Although both faunas consist of a mixture of forest dwellers and open land inhabitants, the faunal members are rather different from each other, indicating a faunal turnover in central Myanmar during the Pliocene (Table 1; Nishioka, 2013). ...


www.researchgate.net/publication/232411863_New_species_of_Agriotherium_Mammalia_Carnivora_from_the_late_Miocene_to_early_Pliocene_of_central_Myanmar

[Gorilla king]

AGRIOTHERIUM USES ITS SHARP CLAWS AND HUGE CANINES TO BRING DOWN AN EARLY GIRAFFE (SIVATHERIUM)


www.flickr.com/photos/jobaria/2826147633/

[Gorilla king]

[arctozilla]

Is Agriotherium a short faced bear? Anyway he's one of the few bears native to Africa and the only bear native to Sub-Saharian Africa after the Indarctos.

[arctozilla]

Hey I found out that Agriotherium lived in my country too.

www.italianjournalofgeosciences.it/297/article-967/first-occurrence-of-the-short-faced-bear-em-agriotherium-em-ursidae-carnivora-in-italy-biochronological-and-palaeoenvironmental-implications.html

[Gorilla king]

Dec 15, 2021 9:30:01 GMT -5 arctozilla said:

Is Agriotherium a short faced bear? Anyway he's one of the few bears native to Africa and the only bear native to Sub-Saharian Africa after the Indarctos.

You will see some reports stating that it was a short-faced bear (like the one you just posted at reply #17 from Italy), but in reality it wasn't because the short-faced bears belonged to the Tremarctinae subfamily while Agriotherium belonged to the Agriotheriinae subfamily, so different subfamilies.

From reply #2:

The skull of Agriotherium africanum looks like that of a dedicated carnivore. Much like Arctodus – a similarly-proportioned but distantly-related bear from the Pleistocene of North America

[Gorilla king]

Ancient African bear had strongest bite


From the BBC:

4 November 2011 Last updated at 02:04

Ancient bear had the strongest bite

By Ella Davies
Reporter, BBC Nature

The largest bear that ever lived also had the strongest bite of any land mammal, say scientists.

Agriotherium africanum was a giant short-faced bear that became extinct five million years ago.

Reconstructions of the carnivore’s skull revealed that it was well adapted to resist the forces involved in eating large prey.

By comparing the skulls of several species, scientists also found polar bears to have surprisingly weak bites.

The findings were published in the Journal of Zoology.

Dr Stephen Wroe from the University of Newcastle, Australia and his team used CT scanners to create 3-D images of bear skulls. They scanned six species, ranging from a giant panda to a reconstructed fossil of A. africanum.

Using the computer generated models created by student Chris Oldfield, the researchers investigated how the skulls stood up to the forces that mimicked killing and feeding behaviours.

“Our analyses show that Agriotherium africanum had an enormously powerful bite – considerably greater than for the largest of living big cats, or any living bear,” said Dr Wroe.

The extinct bear exerted the highest bite force with its large canine teeth. Of all the bears the team examined, its model showed the least strain through the skull when the researchers simulated the forces of biting an item of prey.

“Our analyses show that it had the most powerful bite of any known terrestrial mammal determined thus far,” Dr Wroe told BBC Nature.

Results for another short-faced bear, the giant panda, were also notable; the animal’s skull appeared to be well adapted to high levels of stress.

This might seem surprising for an animal with a diet strictly limited to plant material, but Dr Wroe pointed out that the panda had a large “grinding area” to chew through tough stalks of bamboo.

In comparison, A. africanum had the smallest grinding area of the bears analysed.

‘Power to kill’

The researcher said that A. africanum may have been a “hypercarnivore” with an unparalleled level of meat in its diet for a bear.

“There has been considerable debate over the diet of A. africanum and other short-faced bears. Some have argued that these bears were more carnivorous than most living bears,” said Dr Wroe.

“There can be no doubt that this beast had the power to kill almost anything it could get a hold of – it could also have chased any other predators off their kills; hence it could also have been a very effective scavenger.”

“Its skull was well adapted to resist the forces that would have been generated under such extreme loads.”

Fat-sucker

The study also revealed that the polar bear was a surprisingly “poor performer”.

“It has a really surprisingly weak bite for its size – arguably the weakest among living bears,” Dr Wroe told BBC Nature.

He pointed out that these huge carnivores tended to target relatively “easy-to-kill”, blubbery prey, such as seals.

“It might be more correctly categorised as a specialised ‘fat-sucker’ than a real meat eater,” he said.

The skull comparisons revealed that the polar bear had much shorter blade-like teeth for ripping flesh than the supersized A. africanum.

These extinct giants lived in Africa at the end of the Miocene epoch and into the Pleistocene – five million years ago – and measured up to 2.7m in length.


dearkitty1.wordpress.com/2011/11/04/ancient-african-bear-had-strongest-bite/