ScienceDaily (Jan. 9, 2008) — Rather than being gentle giants, new research reveals that Pleistocene cave bears ate both plants and animals and competed for food with the other contemporary large carnivores of the time: hyaenas, lions, wolves, and our own human ancestors.

Cave bears (Ursus spelaeus) have long fascinated paleontologists and anthropologists, given the abundance of their large skeletal remains in Pleistocene hibernation caves across western Eurasia. For the past 30 years, studies of their bones and teeth, and especially the nitrogen isotopes in their bone protein, have concluded that they were largely vegetarian.

The interpretation of them as vegetarian has evoked an image of gentle giants, feeding on berries and roots. However, new nitrogen isotope data from the Pe_tera cu Oase in southwestern Romania shows otherwise.

Although many of these cave bears appear to have been largely vegetarian, the Oase bears and scattered individuals from other cave sites show that they were sometimes as omnivorous as modern brown bears, including North American Kodiak and grizzly bears.

The study was conducted by an international group of researchers including Michael Richards of the Max Planck Institute and Erik Trinkaus of Washington University in St. Louis.

Journal reference: Richards, M.P., Pacher, M., Stiller, M., Quilès, J., Hofreiter, M., Constantin, S., Zilhão, J., Trinkaus, E. (2008) Isotopic evidence for omnivory among European cave bears: Late Pleistocene Ursus spelaeus from the Pe_tera cu Oase, Romania. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, online January 7,  (in press).

enlarge

Female cave bear skull from the Pestera cu Oase. Studies of the bones and teeth of cave bears, and especially the nitrogen isotopes in their bone protein, have concluded that they were largely vegetarian. (Credit: Academia Romana / Erik Trinkaus)

Related Stories

Prehistoric Bears Ate Everything And Anything, Just Like Modern Cousins (Apr. 13, 2009) — By comparing the craniodental morphology of modern bear species to that of two extinct species, researchers have discovered that the expired plantigrades were not so different from their current ...  > read more

DNA Analysis Reveals Rapid Population Shift Among Pleistocene Cave Bears (Feb. 25, 2007) — Studying DNA obtained from teeth of ancient cave bears, researchers have been able to identify a shift in a particular population of the bears inhabiting a European valley in the late Pleistocene ...  > read more

Wolves Of Alaska Became Extinct 12,000 Years Ago, Scientists Report (July 5, 2007) — The ancient gray wolves of Alaska became extinct some 12,000 years ago, and the wolves in Alaska today are not their descendents but a different subspecies, an international team of scientists ...  > read more

Climate Change Wiped Out Cave Bears 13 Millennia Earlier Than Thought (Dec. 7, 2008) — Enormous cave bears, Ursus spelaeus, that once inhabited a large swathe of Europe, from Spain to the Urals, died out 27,800 years ago, around 13 millennia earlier than was previously believed, ...  > read more

Search ScienceDaily

Science Of Origami