Extinct

Information about the Short-Faced Bear:

The Short-Faced Bear is an extinct member of the family Ursidae or bears. It lived during the Pleistocene era, about 800,000 to 11,000 years ago.It is closely related to living bears like the Grizzly and Black Bear. It is generally believed to have grown to be much larger than any living species of bear today. It was one of the most common bears in North America, with many found in what is today California. The first documented fossil was discovered Potter Creek Cave, Shasta County, California in 1890 by American paleontologist Edward Cope. These were massive bears, with estimates that some individuals weighed 1600 to 1900 pounds, and with a stretched up nose could have reached nearly 15 feet into the air. It is not clear why these bears went extinct, and the smaller relatives the Grizzly and Black Bear survived. It could be the prey that they ate were killed off by humans, or they themselves became hunted by early humans, or that they were unable to adapt to a series of environmental changes in their range. The poster is printed on matte, museum-quality paper with Giclée printing quality: • Paper thickness: 10.3 mil • Paper weight: 5.6 oz/y² (192 g/m²) • Opacity: 94% Buy a Digital Download