Ursinae Explained

Ursinae is a subfamily of Ursidae (bears) named by Swainson (1835). It was assigned to Ursidae by Bjork (1970), Hunt (1998), and Jin et al. (2007).^{[1] [2] [3]}

Classification

See also: List of ursids. The genera Melursus and Helarctos are sometimes also included in Ursus. The Asiatic black bear and the polar bear used to be placed in their own genera, Selenarctos and Thalarctos; these are now placed at subgenus rank.

• Subfamily Ursinae Fischer de Waldheim, 1817
  • †Aurorarctos Jiangzuo & Flynn, 2020
    • †Aurorarctos tirawa Jiangzuo & Flynn, 2020
  • Helarctos Horsfield, 1825
    • Helarctos malayanus (Raffles, 1821) – sun bear
    • †Helarctos sinomalayanus (Thenius, 1947)
  • Melursus Meyer, 1793
    • Melursus ursinus (Shaw, 1791) – sloth bear
    • †Melursus theobaldi (Lydekker, 1884)
  • †Protarctos Kretzoi, 1945
    • †Protarctos abstrusus (Bjork, 1970)
    • †Protarctos boeckhi (Schlosser, 1899)
    • †Protarctos ruscinensis (Depéret, 1890)
    • †Protarctos yinanensis (Li, 1993)
  • Ursus Linnaeus, 1758
    • Ursus americanus (Pallas, 1780) – American black bear
    • Ursus arctos Linnaeus, 1758 – brown bear
    • †Ursus deningeri Richenau, 1904
    • †Ursus dolinensis (Garcia & Arsuaga, 2001)
    • †Ursus etruscus Cuvier, 1823
    • †Ursus ingressus Rabeder, Hofreiter, Nagel & Withalm 2004
    • †Ursus kudarensis Baryshnikov, 1985
    • Ursus maritimus Phipps, 1774 – polar bear
    • †Ursus minimus (Devèze & Bouillet, 1827)
    • †Ursus pyrenaicus (Depéret, 1892)
    • †Ursus rossicus Borissiak, 1930
    • †Ursus sackdillingensis Heller, 1955
    • †Ursus savini (Andrews, 1922)
    • †Ursus spelaeus Rosenmüller, 1794 – cave bear
    • Ursus thibetanus (Cuvier, 1823) – Asiatic black bear
    • †Ursus vitabilis? Gidley, 1913

A number of hybrids have been bred between American black, brown, and polar bears (see Ursid hybrids).

Notes and References

1. Bjork . Philip R. . 1970. The Carnivora of the Hagerman Local Fauna (Late Pliocene) of Southwestern Idaho. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society. . 60. 7. 3–54. 10.2307/1006119 . 1006119.
2. Book: Jacobs . Louis . Janis . Christine M. . Scott . Kathleen L. . Evolution of Tertiary Mammals of North America: Volume 1, Terrestrial Carnivores, Ungulates, and Ungulate like Mammals . Cambridge University Press . Cambridge, UK . 1998 . 0-521-35519-2 . R. M. . Hunt . Ursidae . 174–195 .
3. Jin . C . Ciochon . RL . Dong . W . Hunt Jr . RM . Liu . J . Jaeger . M . Zhu . Q . 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 . 2007 . 17578912 . 1904166 . 10.1073/pnas.0704198104 . 2007PNAS..10410932J . free .