Ursinae
| Ursinae Temporal range: | |
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| A Eurasian brown bear (Ursus arctos arctos) | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Carnivora |
| Family: | Ursidae |
| Subfamily: | Ursinae Fischer de Waldheim, 1817 |
| Genera | |
| Audio | |
| Bear growl | |
Ursinae is a subfamily of the family Ursidae (bears).[1][2][3]
Extent of the subfamily
[edit]In some systems, including the system used in this article (see below), the subfamily Ursinae comprises only the genera Ursus (often including †Protarctos), Helarctos and Melursus.[4]
In other systems, however, the subfamily Ursinae comprises also the Arctotheriini (=Tremarctini; i. e. mainly the genus Tremarctos) and more recently also the genus Aurorarctos and a part of the traditional Ursavini.[5][6][7][8] Sometimes, the subfamily Ursinae is defined even more broadly: it also comprises the Ailuropodinae and all Ursavini[9] and sometimes, in addition, the Hemicyoninae.[10]
The subfamily was named "Ursinae" by William Swainson in 1835. In his text, Ursinae was a subfamily of the family Mustelidae and it included also what is today called Procyonidae and the genus Meles.[11]
Other ranks and names
[edit]What is called subfamily Ursinae in this article (i.e. Ursus, Helarctos, Melursus and often also Protarctos), is classified as tribe Ursini in some systems. Depending on the system used, the tribe Ursini is either one of the tribes of a broadly defined subfamily Ursinae (see above) or it is the only tribe of the subfamily Ursinae as defined in this article.[5][6][12][7]
What is called subfamily Ursinae in this article, is (also) classified as genus Ursus sensu lato in some systems.[5][13]
Internal classification
[edit]The Asiatic black bear, the American black bear, the polar bear and the cave bear (and cave-bear-like species) used to be placed in their own genera, Selenarctos, Euarctos, Thalarctos and †Spelearctos , respectively; these are now placed at subgenus rank.[14]
The internal classification of the subfamily is as follows (the taxa are arranged in alphabetical order):
Subfamily Ursinae Fischer de Waldheim, 1817:
- Helarctos Horsfield, 1825 [sometimes included in the genus Ursus[5]]
- Helarctos malayanus (Raffles, 1821) – sun bear
- Melursus Meyer, 1793 [sometimes included in the genus Ursus[5]]
- †Melursus theobaldi (Lydekker, 1884)
- Melursus ursinus (Shaw, 1791) – sloth bear
- †Protarctos Kretzoi, 1945 [often included in the genus Ursus[5], sometimes more specifically in the species Ursus minimus[14][15]]
- †Protarctos abstrusus (Bjork, 1970)[16]
- †Protarctos boeckhi (Schlosser, 1899)[16] – including †Ursus sinomalayanus Thenius, 1947/Helarctos sinomalayanus[14]
- †Protarctos ruscinensis (Depéret, 1890)[16]
- †Protarctos yinanensis (Li, 1993)[16]
- Ursus Linnaeus, 1758
- Ursus americanus (Pallas, 1780) – American black bear [= subgenus Euarctos[14]] - including †Ursus vitabilis Gidley, 1913
- Ursus arctos Linnaeus, 1758 – brown bear [= subgenus Ursus] – including †Ursus pyrenaicus (Depéret, 1892) and †Ursus sackdillingensis Heller, 1955[14]
- cave bears[17] [= subgenus Spelearctos[14]]:
- †Ursus deningeri Richenau, 1904
- †Ursus ingressus Rabeder, Hofreiter, Nagel & Withalm 2004
- †Ursus kudarensis Baryshnikov, 1985
- †Ursus rossicus Borissiak, 1930
- †Ursus savini (Andrews, 1922)
- †Ursus spelaeus Rosenmüller, 1794 – cave bear
- †Ursus dolinensis (Garcia & Arsuaga, 2001)
- †Ursus etruscus Cuvier, 1823
- Ursus maritimus Phipps, 1774 – polar bear [= former subgenus Thalarctos, today usually in subgenus Ursus together with U. arctos[14]]
- †Ursus minimus (Devèze & Bouillet, 1827)
- Ursus thibetanus (Cuvier, 1823) – Asiatic black bear [= subgenus Selenarctos]
A number of hybrids have been bred between American black, brown, and polar bears (see Ursid hybrids).
References
[edit]- ↑ Bjork, Philip R. (1970). "The Carnivora of the Hagerman Local Fauna (Late Pliocene) of Southwestern Idaho". Transactions of the American Philosophical Society. 60 (7). American Philosophical Society: 3–54. doi:10.2307/1006119. JSTOR 1006119.
- ↑ Hunt, R. M. (1998). "Ursidae". In Jacobs, Louis; Janis, Christine M.; Scott, Kathleen L. (eds.). Evolution of Tertiary Mammals of North America: Volume 1, Terrestrial Carnivores, Ungulates, and Ungulate like Mammals. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. pp. 174–195. ISBN 0-521-35519-2.
- ↑ Jin, C; Ciochon, RL; Dong, W; Hunt Jr, RM; Liu, J; Jaeger, M; Zhu, Q (2007). "The first skull of the earliest giant panda". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 104 (26): 10932–7. Bibcode:2007PNAS..10410932J. doi:10.1073/pnas.0704198104. PMC 1904166. PMID 17578912.
- ↑ "Ursidae Family". ASM Mammal Diversity Database. Retrieved 2026-08-24.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 Jiangzuo, Qigao; Flynn, John J. (2020). "The Earliest Ursine Bear Demonstrates the Origin of Plant-Dominated Omnivory in Carnivora". iScience. 23 (6) 101235. Elsevier BV. doi:10.1016/j.isci.2020.101235. ISSN 2589-0042. PMC 7303987.
- 1 2 P. David Polly. "Bear feet with Björn: tarsal evolution in the origin of polar bears," Annales Zoologici Fennici 61(1), 357-376, (19 November 2024).
- 1 2 Wang X, Rybczynski N, Harington CR, White SC, Tedford RH. A basal ursine bear (Protarctos abstrusus) from the Pliocene High Arctic reveals Eurasian affinities and a diet rich in fermentable sugars. Sci Rep. 2017 Dec 18;7(1):17722. doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-17657-8. PMID: 29255278; PMCID: PMC5735171.
- ↑ Wozencraft, W. C. Order Carnivora. pp. 279–348 in Wilson, D. E. & Reeder, D. M. Mammal Species of the World: A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference. Second edition. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, 1993
- ↑ Lindburg, Don; Baragona, Karen (2004-08-23). Giant Pandas: Biology and Conservation. University of California Press. p. 47. ISBN 978-0-520-23867-1. Retrieved 2026-08-24.
- ↑ Baskin , J. A. and R. H. Tedford. Small arctoid and feliform carnivorans. in The terrestrial Eocene - Oligocene transition in North America, ed. D. R. Prothero and R. J. Emry. New York:Cambridge University Press, 1996, pp. 486-497
- ↑ Swainson, William (1835). On the Natural History and Classification of Quadrupeds. Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green, & Longman, and John Taylor. p. 363, 364. Retrieved 2026-08-24.
- ↑ Hendey, Q. B. A Pliocene ursid from South Africa. Annals of the South African Museum 59(6), 1972. pp. 115–132
- ↑ Nowak, Ronald M. (2005). Walker's Carnivores of the World. JHU Press. p. 117. ISBN 978-0-8018-8032-2. Retrieved 2026-08-24.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Zijlstra, J.S. 2025. Hesperomys Project (Version 25.12.0) . access date: 2026-08-24
- ↑ T. DE TORRES PEREZHIDALGO. The European descendants of Ursus etruscus C. Cuvier (Mammalia, Carnivora, Ursidae). Boletin Geologico y Minero. Vol. 103-4. Ano 1992 (632-642). p. 14
- 1 2 3 4 Xiaoming Wang; Natalia Rybczynski; C. Richard Harington; Stuart C. White; Richard H. Tedford (2017). "A basal ursine bear (Protarctos abstrusus) from the Pliocene High Arctic reveals Eurasian affinities and a diet rich in fermentable sugars". Scientific Reports. 7 (1) 17722.
- ↑ Rabeder, Gernot & Pacher, Martina & Withalm, Gerhard. Early Pleistocene bear remains from Deutsch-Altenburg (Lower Austria). Mitt. Komm. Quartärforsch. Österr. Akad. Wiss., 17, Wien, 2009/2010. p. 104 (left side of p. 104, i. e. German language version)
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