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Encyclopedia of Animal Cognition and Behavior pp 1–11Cite as

Bear Morphology

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Introduction

The family Ursidae comprises eight extant species, generally classified into three subfamilies: Ursinae (polar bear Ursus maritimus, brown bear Ursus arctos, American black bear Ursus americanus, Asiatic black bear Ursus thibetanus, sloth bear Melursus ursinus, and sun bear Helarctos malayanus), Ailuropodinae (giant panda Ailuropoda melanoleuca), and Tremarctinae (Andean bear Tremarctos ornatus) (Wagner 2010). Bears evolved about 20–25 million years before present (McLellan and Reiner 1994). Of the extant species, the giant panda diverged 12–20 million years ago, followed by the Andean bear about 7–13 million years ago, whereas the six species in the Ursinae diverged during the last 5 million years (Kumar et al. 2017). Bears attained a wide geographical distribution, mostly in the northern hemisphere (Kumar et al. 2017).

Morphologically and taxonomically, bears possess the distinguishing traits of Carnivora but, with the exception of the polar bear, are not obligate...

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Nature Conservation of Polish Academy of Sciences, Krakow, Poland

    Đuro Huber

  2. Department of Interior, U.S. Geological Survey, Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center, Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team, Bozeman, MT, USA

    Frank T. van Manen

Authors
  1. Đuro Huber
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  2. Frank T. van Manen
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Correspondence to Đuro Huber .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Oakland University, Rochester, MI, USA

    Jennifer Vonk

  2. Department of Psychology, Oakland University Department of Psychology, Rochester, MI, USA

    Ph.D. Todd Shackelford

Section Editor information

  1. Georgia College & State University, Mobile, Al, USA

    Stephanie Jett

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Huber, Đ., van Manen, F.T. (2019). Bear Morphology. In: Vonk, J., Shackelford, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Animal Cognition and Behavior. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47829-6_1711-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47829-6_1711-1

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