The Imperial Woodpecker: Portrait of a Vanished Species

Portrait of a Vanished Species

Since the year 1956, this spectacular bird has not been seen in Mexico, the nature of its disappearance has almost perfectly mirrored that of its counterpart the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker (Campephilus principalis), which also disappeared from continental North American during the late 1950’s. The Imperial Woodpecker (Campephilus imperialus), in many ways the ‘quintessential’ woodpecker, was the largest of all woodpeckers (measuring 20-24 inches –the size of a Raven) and was of splendid coloration, the male was blue-black, had a brilliant red crest on his head, white wing patches, and a white V on the back; females lacked the brilliant red crest, but almost as ornately, their crest was black and curled forwards. These birds lived in high-altitude pine-oak woodlands throughout much of central Mexico (a distribution map detailing the former range of Campephilus imperialus can be found at the IUCN's Redlist, click here). It is thought that fragmentation of once continuous habitat due to development and logging was the primary cause of its recent and very unfortunate extinction, but they were also once sought for as a food source.

Of great significance to the story of the Imperial Woodpecker is the recent discovery of forgotten footage -the William L. Rhein film from 1956- which captured several birds foraging in their native habitat in the state of Durango. Ironically, this was the last year that the birds were recorded in the wild and they have not been seen since. Their disappearance -like that of their counterpart the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker- was a great disappointment and mystery to naturalists and ornithologists across the world, who -in the years prior to the discovery of this footage- had previously believed that the species vanished without ever being filmed or recorded on audio. Here is the William L. Rhein footage embedded below.

The Story of the Tsemen: A Cryptid ´Elephant´ in Mexico

The Story of the Tsemen: A Cryptid ´Elephant´ in Mexico

The time has finally come to publish this story. Since I first opened this blog back in July 2010, I have had little time to write and publish extensively researched natural history articles which would also be accompanied with illustrations and paintings. That will change soon, but while I am busily in the process of generating images for clients, my website, and for this blog, I believe the time is now long overdue in disclosing the fascinating details of the following story... I will give a brief explanation before I begin, so that readers will understand how I came to learn about this cryptid animal.

Back in December 2010, I returned to Mexico from the United States to accompany my girlfriend, Deva Baumbach San Pedro, to fulfill a research mission regarding the musical nature of the various Mayan peoples of Chiapas. Her purpose was to learn about the musical elements of their culture in order to derive a deeper understanding of Mexico´s ancient musical character. Her own project, which was funded by a grant from the FONCA, involved the making of her new album, as she is a musician, singer, and songwriter.

And so, on December 7th, 2010, we arrived in San Cristóbal, Chiapas (the southernmost state in Mexico and bordering the country of Guatemala); from this city, which we used as our base, we traveled to various parts of the region, visiting rural villages and meeting with people of special cultural significance. The indigenous people of the region are known collectively as the Maya, but really this is perhaps an over-generalized term, since the people are quite varied in custom and even language (at least twelve different native languages are spoken in this region alone and many people don´t even know how to speak Spanish).

On one of these forays into remote country, we went to a small village called Huitiupán, to seek a man of certain importance. He was Alberto Gómez of the Maya Tsotsil people -a reputed poet, songwriter, and one-time president of his municipality. Culturally speaking, he was perhaps the most resourceful person with whom we met on our research trip.

What I would learn from him in regards to the wildlife and natural history of the region, was also of special significance (and it was my private mission to learn and observe as much of the jungle as I could while we were traveling). Indeed, what I learned from him was surprising to say the least of it. For a number of months since that trip, I have not had the time to write more extensively about the unique events which he revealed to me, nor have I been able to generate the particular painting which I will publish in this same article later in time (I believed the revelation of this story was deserving of the best presentation). Nonetheless, I do not believe the story needs to be kept secret much longer, as it would be of great interest to cryptozoologists and natural history enthusiasts interested in animal mysteries.

This article and its contents might also be considered the prelude to more extensively illustrated publications which I shall co-author with Markus Buhler of the Bestiarium in the future.

And so I will simply reveal the story of this animal as I had written it in my journal during our research trip...

It was by the River Joch'ompat, deep in the heart of rural and mountainous Chiapas, when I sat down with one Alberto Gómez to talk with him about an enigmatic forest animal which has presumably gone extinct there. Alberto Gómez is a native man of the Maya Tsotsil -a talented, intelligent, artistic, and culturally sensitive individual who is a poet, a musician, a writer, and one-time president of his town. Our main purpose for having come to his far-flung village of Huitiupán was to fulfill a research project concerning the musical and mystical nature of the living Mayan peoples, so that Deva (my girlfriend) could obtain resourceful and unique material for her own musical project -which is to honor and celebrate indigenous Mexico. Of course however, being a naturalist, artist, and writer, I was quick to ask Alberto about the local wildlife the first evening of our meeting... As I might have expected, he told me that the jaguar still lurks in the cool shadows of the forest and a great abundance of exotic and surprising animal life flourishes there. The tapir -that prehistoric mammal of almost timeless form- is told to live in the mountain heights -away from cattle and cattlemen. Monkeys are also told to live with them in the higher hillsides and in the more remote climes... But it was my casual mentioning of a recently extinct animal which sparked perhaps the greatest and most exciting talk of it all...

Cuvieronius hyodon was a proboscidean (a relative of the elephants), an extinct species of New World Gomphothere. In life it stood about 9 ft. tall at the shoulder and would have been about the size of a modern Indian Elephant (Elephas maximus); its appearance however, must have been something quite unique -its most distinguishing feature perhaps might have been its strange spiral-shaped tusks... Knowing that the animal evidently survived into surprisingly recent times in Holocene South America and was hunted by ancestral native people there, and also that there is strongly suggestive evidence that it survived in Central America relatively recently because of an elephant-like motif often observed in the prehistoric art of the indigenous Mayans, I felt it was more than appropriate to mention it to Alberto over our dinner conversation. What he told me in response was surprising and unexpected, but it was a story that needed careful telling, and so we worked together for some time down in the deep valley of his country where several large rivers make their confluence in a dramatic and steep landscape...

Above ▲ 1) The emerald River Joch'ompat 2) The dramatic landscape at the confluence of the three rivers of Huitiupán, rural Chiapas 3) Alberto Gomez (left), sits with Deva (right), on the riverbank, explaining the nature of his song lyrics.

So we came to sit under the shade of a tree on the sandy banks of the river, above whose emerald waters flew Great Kiskadees, Great White Egrets, Turkey Vultures and Black Vultures. Shortly after sighting the magnificent Montezuma Oropendula, whose complex and watery vocalization is both unmistakably unique and also captivating, he begins his story and I begin to translate the story into English...

First he takes a stick and begins to draw in the sand. ''Okay then, I will tell you the story of the Tsemen from the very beginning so that you will understand this event... You are to know that today's villages of Huitiupán and Catarina (the latter being the village of my childhood) are not the original villages of Huitiupán and Catarina. I grew up in the new village of Catarina, but it was my great grandfather Higinio Perez Lopez who started the new village a long time ago, he did this because he was the only survivor left from the first village of Catarina, they all had to move up the mountainside because of a sickness that killed many villagers there, but there were never more than 200 of them to begin with...

Now before I tell you what my great grandfather found, I will tell you something that happened when I was younger. I do not remember the details, but somehow it came about that my grandmother, Francisca Guiterres Perez, should behold a photograph of an elephant in some book that we had, and she promptly said, 'Ah, a Tsemen!' And when we asked her what she meant -as she had clearly never before seen or knew an elephant any other way- she told us the story of what my great grandfather found in the forest. She said, 'When Higinio Perez Lopez created the new ranch where we now all live, they hunted there in the forest. I was just a girl when it happened, but one day they brought back a very strange animal which we called the ´Tsemen´, and which others called the ´Great Food-turkey´ because it had so much meat on its body and it could feed a family for a long time. I remember that it had a very long head with a trunk exactly like the trunk of this animal (indicating the elephant), it had wrinkled skin and big feet. Its meat tasted like that between a deer and a cow. That was what my father-in-law brought, it was he who killed the Tsemen, and we ate it. It only happened once in all my life, it never happened again, we didn't find it anymore after that...' So that is the story of the Tsemen..." Alberto finishes.

Such a remarkable and fascinating event has rather moving scientific implications, and the account would be difficult to believe if it were not for an unassuming honesty and innocence with which the story is told. It is told by an indigenous man in a far-flung village in Chiapas, and while he is well-educated, well-traveled, and literate in two languages (those being Tsotsil and Spanish), he plainly had no previous knowledge of Cuvieronius, nor would he have any motive or interest in fabricating an untrue story to attract attention or to create a sensation around a mythical beast that never existed. He tells the story in such a way that it seems matter-of-fact, as though the event -strange as it was- was as plain as the sky. Simply said, Alberto dug the story up out of his memory upon my casual and unpredictable mentioning of an extinct elephant-like animal in Mexico. Because of the nature of these things, it is plain that this event -without a doubt something of singular occurrence- was probably true (though I am also not one to underestimate the power of myth and legend).

But what does it really mean? It means that -if the account was spoken in truth by its original teller (being Alberto Gómez´s grandmother)- something very unusual was killed in his district only about 73 years ago, a enigmatic wild animal that was hunted and eaten for food. Naturally, I asked him about the tapir -the only other native mammal of Mexico that could possibly be confused with an elephant simply because of its prehensile though comparatively minuscule 'trunk' (it is a stretch to imagine confusing a tapir with an elephant, but I had to check all possibilities). I asked him, ''And the tapir, what is it called in Tsotsil?'' He answers, ''The tapir is called K'em." The Mayan people know the tapir well, and this animal was not a tapir. Evidently, and unavoidably, it was a proboscidean of some kind. But that also creates more questions than answers. What elephant? What was the Tsemen really? What really happened in the territory of Catarina last century?

I will here state that while I am an open-minded and curious naturalist, I am not at all gullible, nor am I quick to assume too much, especially when it concerns cryptid animals (I do not believe in Bigfoot whatsoever for example, and fabricated hoaxes are serious waste of time), but this story was especially compelling and fascinating. In light of stranger things that have happened, I would also not be too quick to entirely denounce the possibility that Cuvieronius -an animal which possibly survived within the last several thousand years in South America- went extinct only within the past 100 years in Central America. That is a heart-pounding prospect but also an admittedly wild speculation (unavoidable however in light of the story). It is most probable that if such an animal managed to survive -unheeded by Western science- into such recent history, it has been extinct for many decades. Still, if it were to be the case that more stories could unfold, or if an authentic specimen of recently dated bone or hide were found, it would still be a huge though partially disappointing discovery...

I even inquired Alberto about ancient refuse dumps, in the case that the skull or the bones of such an animal was thrown into a well-known garbage pile or was kept by the family, but he simply shook his head and said. ´That would prove to be a very difficult search, the jungle eats everything so quickly, and finding an old dump in this jungle would be very difficult.´ Simply put, I wouldn´t have the time to miraculously find an ancient dump and unearth the skull of the Tsemen, it wasn´t worth the search.

Now after returning to San Cristóbal, it is amusing to walk in the marketplaces here and study the beautiful and colorful woven tapestries which the Mayan women make and sell. They are embroidered with folksy animal motifs, non-native animals among them (like lions and zebras), and elephants. That a Gomphothere could have survived even so recently as 1,000 years ago in South and Central America is already a marvel in itself, but imagine if it was somehow confirmed that their extinction was more recent! An exotic and bewildering discovery that would render the natural history of Mexico and Central America even that much more colorful and mysterious!

Questions tumble in my mind apart from sheer wonderment. I wonder if the Tsemen -if it truly ever existed- was the same animal which inspired ancient Mayan artists- was it Cuvieronius, or yet another proboscidean species endemic to this hemisphere, a species that somehow persisted into recent history despite wide extinction elsewhere? Could it have been an American Mastodon (Mamut americanum), or the Columbian Mammoth (Mammuthus columbi), could it have been Stegomastodon? Perhaps just a strange, could it have been an non-endemic? An escaped circus elephant or an exotic, aristocratic pet that lived wild in Chiapas until its curious demise at the dinner table? What does the word 'Tsemen' actually mean? How did they kill it? Why didn´t Alberto Gomez mention tusks in his story? How did Higinio Perez Lopez and his hunting party ´bring back´ such a large animal? Was it a young animal -a juvenile? Was Francisca Guiterres Perez simply telling a story to entertain her grandchildren? Was her mind sound?1

More personal research on my part is needed to answer these questions... It is quite possible that, as interesting and colorful as the story is, it might be complete fiction (certainly not contrived however, on the part of Albeto Gómez). I will surely see our friend Alberto again.

Above ▲ 1) An ornately carved, ancient Mayan sculpture known as ´Eighteen Rabbits´, details twin images that have been interpreted as ´elephant-like´, these images are symmetrically arranged on each side of the sculpture´s crown 2) An artist´s image clarifying the fine details of the elephant-like motif on the right side of this sculpture (follow white arrow) 3) A clay pot of the Olmec culture, strongly resembling an elephant. Image Source: http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread654512/pg1#pid10401002

Gomphotheres of Upper Pleistocene South America -Preliminary Study

▲

Distant relatives of modern elephants (and by all superficial means quite similar to them), the Gomphotheres were a branch of the Proboscidean order, several species of which inhabited the South American continent during the Plei

stocene. Here depicted are Cuvieronius hyodon, Stegomastodon (*haplomastodon) waringi, and Stegomastodon platensis. Some evidence suggests that these animals survived surprisingly recently, even coexisting with early human inhabitants. This illustration is a preliminary study that will proceed the painting of Cuvieronius hyodon in its habitat of ancient Mexico. Later to be published on this same article.

For now, all that can really be said of the Tsemen is that its story may deserve more attention for those interested enough to pursue it. The prospect of such a large, unknown mammal persisting into such recent history is very interesting to say the least of it. What more can be discovered of it I could not predict however, nor hope for much beyond what I was lucky enough to learn about. Perhaps it can be safely stated that until now, only a few dozen people know this story... But perhaps more research needs to be done in inquiring the various rural natives of Chiapas of any lore regarding this kind of animal, perhaps only then can anything more persuasive be derived.

Until then, all that can be safely surmised is that I happened upon a very interesting and compelling story, one from which no scientific conclusions or assumptions can be derived, as it comes from memory several generations passed on. So what are my final thoughts that I wish to share? Only this, the elephant-like motifs found in Mayan art are that much more convincing and worth special consideration...

FOOTNOTES

1. Now that I have offered this skeptical viewpoint, I should like to point out that ´Tsemen´ was a word that was designated for an animal that was apparently already known by the people of the Maya Tsotsil, and that Alberto would have probably known if his grandmother was at all in any deteriorating state of mind. This makes me wonder therefore, if ´Tsemen´ is a word recalled in the memory of Mayan elders from other communities, or if it was a word that was generated only after that unique occasion and in that unique community.

Saber-toothed Cats of the Ancient Americas

The genus Smilodon is comprised of three known species of Machairodontine Felids or Saber-toothed Cats, two of which thrived in the Americas as recently as 10,000 years ago.

Smilodon fatalis was lion-sized, and is known to have ranged throughout much of the North American continent and Pacific South America west of the Andes Mountains. This animal left a huge quantity of fossilized remains in the famous Rancho la Brea Tar Pits (Los Angeles, CA), offering paleontologists a privileged opportunity to study their morphology and derive theories about their behavioral likelihoods and interspecific relations with other large mammal fauna of the era. S. fatalis has subsequently become almost as iconic as the Woolly Mammoth for the Ice Age. Perhaps surprisingly, this animal did not necessarily live in glacial climates as popular media has suggested (much of the continent was quite similar to today´s climate, only cooler and wetter, the glaciers were primarily confined to subarctic regions in the north and in high elevations).

In eastern South America, there lived another species of Smilodon, which was a massively built creature and incredibly powerful. It´s muscle-bound forelimbs were huge in contrast to the comparatively gracile hind limbs, and it manifested a hyena-like slope to the back. The odd morphology of this great cat was likely the result of its adaptation to hunting huge, ponderous herbivores like Megatheres and Toxodonts. The difference between S. fatalis and S. populator is therefore about the same difference as that between a lion and a tiger. While S. fatalis -the smaller cat in the size-comparison- was the size of a modern lion, the mighty S. populator was dramatically bigger. S. populator might therefore arguably be one of the greatest of the big cats to have ever lived; strictly in terms of length, it might only be outsized by the magnificent Siberian Tiger (happily extant though critically endangered), yet in terms of weight, it was certainly the heaviest.

Smilodon fatalis ranged throughout much of the North American continent and also existed in South America, where its range was confined west of the Andes Mountains, east, its much greater counterpart prowled the ancient Pampas. It went extinct ~10,000 years ago, but only after sharing the continents with ancestral Native Americans for at least 20,000 years prior.

Smilodon populator, perhaps the greatest of the big cats to have ever lived. This great animal ranged across much of South America east of the Andes Mountains, hunting huge, ponderous Megatheres and Toxodonts.

Size comparison of Smildon populator and Smilodon fatalis, while S. fatalis (the smaller cat in the comparison) is considerably outsized by its South American counterpart, it was not a small animal itself, equaling in size a modern African Lion.

Pleistocene South America ▲ In a river delta 100,000 years ago, the great bear Arctotherium angustidens –quite possibly the largest species of bear that has ever existed- rushes upon a Saber-toothed Cat (Smilodon populator) scavenging on the carcass of the rhino-sized notoungulate Toxodon platensis. The animal had died of causes apart from predation, but now its body has become food for a range of opportunistic feeders, including the Western Black Vulture (Coragyps occidentalis), very similar to today’s Black Vulture (Coragyps atratus) only 15% larger, and with a longer, flatter beak. While they readily flee from the sudden and startling approach of the bear, the Saber-toothed Cat is more reluctant to leave.

REFERENCES▼

Harris, John M., Rancho La Brea: Death Trap and Treasure Trove. Los Angeles, CA: Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, 2005.

Stock, Chester., Rancho La Brea: A Record of Pleistocene Life in California, 7th Edition. Los Angeles, CA: Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, 2001.

Turner, Alan., Antón, Mauricio., The Big Cats and their Fossil Relatives New York: Columbia University Press, 1997.

MacDonald, David W., The Princeton Encyclopedia of Mammals. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006.

SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING or VIEWING▼

ARCTOTHERIUM, BIGGEST BEAR EVER? by Cameron McCormick http://www.thelordgeekington.com/2011/01/arctotherium-angustidens-biggest-bear.html

Marsupial Carnivores: Introduction to a Five-Part Series

Marsupial Carnivores

Introduction

I. The Origin and Evolution of the Thylacoleonids

II. Thylacosmilids and Borhyaenids

III. Carnivorous Kangaroos

IV. Tasmanian Devil and Friends

V. The Thylacine: Reconstructing a Species Splendid and Lost

Early in the 20th century, on the island formerly known as Van Diemen´s Land, a truly remarkable animal form disappeared forever, and left many people the world over feeling empty-handed for it. From a zoological standpoint, the creature was a marvel, and embodied what is perhaps one of nature’s most legendary and extraordinary examples of convergent evolution. Just as much as it was truly a marvel however, the animal was also shrouded in scientific misunderstanding, widespread public misconception, and myth which bordered on the absurd...

An uneducated or insensitive observer might have regarded the Thylacine, or Marsupial Wolf (popularly known as the Tasmanian Tiger) to be little more than an peculiar, striped dog, and to many of the pastoral Europeans who settled the island, it surely must have been regarded as little more than this, for the animal –being a carnivore- was reported to occasionally prey on farm chickens and sheep (though solidly confirmed incidences are scarce to come by), and quickly developed an exaggerated reputation for being a poultry-killer, a Shepherd´s nightmare, and a threat to the domestic integrity of an ´economically advanced´ culture which was then forming in Tasmania. But what is supposedly known and repeatedly written of the Thylacine in the popularly read literature of the previous century was not necessarily the truth about the animal, and the more fascinating aspects of its actual character -or at least what can be reasonably or accurately inferred - will be illustrated and discussed in further detail in the fifth and final article in this upcoming series.

▲ Not the So-called ´Benjamin´ This famous video footage of the last Tasmanian Tiger records a female specimen reacting with lively curiosity to a domestic dog on the other side of the fenced enclosure. In recent years, the animal in the footage has been popularly and affectionately called ´Benjamin´ due to a report made by Frank Darby in 1968, who claimed to be one of its former keepers. Later research proved this to be false, as there were no records of any Frank Darby being employed by the Hobart Zoo at any point in its forty-three year duration. Furthermore, the primary curator of the zoo, Alison Read, affirmed in a later interview by Robert Paddle that there was never anyone by the name of Darby working in the zoo, nor was this last Thylacine ever named Benjamin. So the story of ´Benjy´, though well received by the public and promoted by a favorable motive for conservation and education, is a myth... Also, take note of the noticeable movement in the tail; popular literature has often illustrated the Thylacine as having a stiff, rod-like tail which was incapable of significant movement, as will be later discussed, this simply was not true.

Perhaps what was most incredible about the Thylacine’s resemblance to the canine form is that it was not in fact a canine at all, and genetically speaking, it could hardly have been further from it outside of the class Mammalia –it was a marsupial, a member of that special group of mammals which give birth to embryonic babies that climb into the pouch -or marsupium- and continue their development therein.¹ True dogs of the family Canidae are Eutherian mammals, which give birth to much larger, more developed babies (Eutherian mammals make up the most of the mammalian fauna –and we are among them). It is therefore true that, on a strictly genetic and evolutionary level, we as humans are more related to our own domestic dogs than dogs are to the Thylacine –notwithstanding the remarkable superficial resemblance they have to one another.

Convergent evolution is a natural phenomenon in which two animals of different evolutionary paths –occupying a similar niche in nature and thus shaped by similar ecological pressures- evolve to be morphologically or behaviorally analogous. This can lead to some truly striking examples, and at least in the mammal world, the form and function of Australasian marsupials embody some of the best.² Convergent evolution is responsible for the notable similarity between the Thylacine and the wolf, the Marsupial Mole and the true insectivorous mole, the couscous and the loris, the Tiger Quoll and the Ocelot, and countless other examples, many of which no longer exist.

Some of these examples can be found in the extinct marsupial fauna of both Australia and South America,³ but our particular focus in this coming five-part series concerns the taxa of extinct, large-bodied marsupial carnivores, several of which disappeared from Australia only as recently as the late Pleistocene and coexisted with aboriginal human beings for tens of thousands of years before finally succumbing to climate change and ecological modifications they could not adapt to (some of which might have been catalyzed by the presence and activities of human beings).

Since our recent loss of the Thylacine, many have hoped to rediscover it, perhaps in the wilderness areas of Tasmania, southern Australia, or perhaps in the remote and far-flung jungles of its former ancient range in Papua New Guinea. Be that as it may, the animal is probably gone, and so a branch of the living creation –so rare and extraordinary- has been cut off, existing only as a vanished anomaly in our textbooks and films.

▲ A pair of Thylacines rest among the dry tussock grasses of a coastal Tasmanian grassland while a Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo (Calyptorhynchus funereus) flies overhead. It should come as no surprise that initial contact between Thylacines and the first European explorers occurred in the coastal margins of the island, where they were sometimes seen from offshore. The Thylacine's apparent propensity to frequent marine habitats led to an early, scientific misconception that they were piscivorous and actively hunted fish in the sea (the ridiculous nature of this claim is further punctuated by the belief that they used their laterally 'compressed' tails to propel themselves through the water! Amazingly, it was idea that was widely accepted by the scientific community of the 19^th century and so it was published and repeated by a number of unquestioning authors, evidently notwithstanding any consideration for swimming marsupials and pouch-dependent young). While old-timers who kept Thylacines as pets reported that they were good swimmers and even gave some playful chase to trout in freshwater streams, there was never any substantial reason to believe that they specialized in a diet of marine fish! Yet Thylacines must have also occasionally scavenged, and therefore might have fed on marine carrion from time to time -such as washed-up whale carcasses, or dead fish in the sand (observation of such behavior might have been the origin for such a scientific myth). The evident social behavior of the species -so poorly misunderstood and unintentionally misrepresented by 20^th century authors- will also be discussed in the fifth and final article of this coming series: 'The Thylacine: Reconstructing a Species Splendid and Lost'.

Yet Tasmania today is not without its remarkable marsupial carnivores, one of which has perhaps greater fame than its dog-like relation the Thylacine. The largest species of extant marsupial carnivores in the world are now the Tasmanian Devils (Sacrophilus harrisii), lively, boisterous, squabblesome creatures whose rowdy feeding quarrels have earned them their name. The other marsupial carnivores of notable size are the six recognized species of cat-like quolls (genus Dasyrus) of Australia, Tasmania, and New Guinea.⁴

The Tasmanian Devil –compact and heavily muscled- can weigh as much as 14 kg (30 lbs.), which is about the size of a small dog, and the Tiger Quoll (Dasyrus maculates) –another Tasmanian- can weigh as much as 7 kg (15.4 lbs.), which is about the size of a large housecat. The now-extinct Thylacine –which will be revisited later on in this series – weighed as much as 35 kg (77 lbs.). The diversity of sizeable marsupial carnivores is therefore quite limited now, but the fossil record has revealed that there was once a great diversity of large-bodied marsupial carnivores in both Australia and South America, the greatest of which, the bizarre and enigmatic Marsupial Lion (Thylacoleo carnifex), weighed an excess of 137 kg (300 lbs.), and died out perhaps only as recently as 10,000 years ago in the southern regions of Australia.

In light of their weird morphology and spellbinding uniqueness, it is the Marsupial Lions –or thylacoleonids- that we will be looking at first, of which there are eleven known species, next we will visit the thylacosmilids and borhyaenids of prehistoric South America, the stranger still carnivorous kangaroos of Australia, then the giant dasyurids, and finally the thylacinids, of which the Marsupial Wolf is its most famous member.

FOOTNOTES▼

1. ´Primitiveness´ in this context, is not meant to suggest or support the long-held scientific belief in Placental superiority, it is only it meant to describe the marsupial as operating by a reproductive system which foreshadowed that of Eutherian mammals. In all of my future articles I shall refer to these two different mammalian groups as Marsupials and Eutherians (placentals), respectively. This is because both marsupials and ´placental´ mammals possess what is definably a placenta, so the term ´Placental´ is technically obsolete..
2. There will be a lot of future discussion of convergent evolution on the Wild and Wonderful Life on Planet Earth© in coming articles.
3. The geographical distribution of marsupials will also be explained in future blog articles.
4. The remaining marsupial carnivores of the world are among the great host of smaller-bodied possums, phascogales, and mouse-sized dunnarts and antechinus.

REFERENCES▼

MacDonald, David W., The Princeton Encyclopedia of Mammals. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006.

Vandenbeld, John. Nature of Australia: A Portrait of the Island Continent. New York: Facts on File, 1988.

Paddle, Robert. The Last Tasmanian Tiger: The History and Extinction of the Thylacine. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING/VIEWING▼

NATURE OF AUSTRALIA by John Vandenbeld
VHS: NATURE OF AUSTRALIA, six-part PBS television series hosted by George Page

Africa’s Only Bear: A Brief Natural History of the Mysterious Atlas Bear (Ursus arctos crowtheri)

Africa’s Only Bear: A Brief Natural History of the Mysterious Atlas Bear (Ursus arctos crowtheri)

► First Stop on the Wild and Wonderful Life on Planet Earth^©: The Atlas Mountains, Morocco

* See Footnotes for more details (as indicated by superscripted numbers¹)

Let us travel to the Maghreb, far north of the Sahara Desert, to the high Atlas Mountains of Morocco. In many places, these austere, celestial heights still remain relatively unblemished and pristine, and contain a wealth of superb natural treasures.

The climate of North Africa is varied but more or less parallels the natural conditions found on the other side of the Mediterranean Sea – a stark, rocky, and arid wilderness of high, dry plains, open, mixed woodlands, and alpine expanses. Remarkably, at the narrowest point in the Strait of Gibraltar, North Africa is separated from Spain by only 7.7 nautical miles of seawater (14.24 km). And thus, to no marginal extent –and perhaps expectedly- North Africa’s biological composition is characterized by an exceptional mixture of both African and European floras and faunas.

This place was once the haunt of the outstanding Barbary Lion (Panthera leo leo), a great cat of superlative splendor and form, which disappeared from the continent sometime during the course of the early to mid 20^th century. A smaller pantherine counterpart of this region –the secretive Barbary Leopard (Panthera pardus panthera) - managed to cling precariously to existence for some decades longer than the lion, and has itself disappeared perhaps only within this last ten years or so. There is still some hope that these incredible cats lurk like ghosts in the far reaches of the mountains, but they have not been seen or otherwise detected for a discouraging number of years. Many people fear that the Atlas Mountains have finally lost two living jewels that may never be obtained again.¹

Megafaunal Maghrebi Carnivores ▲The three greatest carnivores of the Maghreb are now extinct. The Barbary Lion (Panthera leo leo) was the greatest among them and the greatest among all lions, the male manifested an impressively developed mane which grew black and thick and extended all the way down the length of his belly; such lions would have hunted the Red Deer of the Atlas as well as wild boar, Barbary Sheep, Mouflon and gazelle. It would appear as though many captive lions today are descended from the Barbary race; be that as it may, the race remains functionally extinct. The Atlas Bear (Ursus arctos crowtheri), without a doubt unique among Ursines, cannot be resurrected to its former condition. The Barbary Leopard (Panthera pardus panthera) on the other hand, may still lurk like a shadow in the mountains, though verified sightings have not been made in over a decade. It appears as though the great cat was not substantially different enough genetically from its abundant counterparts south of the Sahara to be considered a distinct subspecies -though it possessed certain physical traits unique among leopards of the region.

But there was another living jewel, a very unusual creature –and seemingly out of place for its kind- which disappeared from northern African probably about one century before the lion and the leopard. The creature was unusual for several reasons, the first reason was that it was a bear –the only native kind naturally present on the vast African continent within recent history, and the second, that it may have in fact been a distinct species apart from the ones we are now familiar with.

To this day, not much is known about the Atlas Bear, as it is rumored that the very last among them were hunted to extinction sometime during the course of the late 19^th century. No skeletal remains or pelts were ever preserved for study while the living animals were apparently kept by European zoos, and most of what is known about its physical appearance and morphology is derived from scant observations recorded by French scientists in the early 1800s (though, as later discussed, Brown Bear subfossils have been found at various sites in North Africa in recent decades). Its Latin name –though sometimes disputed- is Ursus arctos crowtheri, owing to the reasonable presumption that it was a race of Brown Bear, Ursus arctos.

Just how modern bears ended up in Africa is a riddle in itself. It is known that primitive bears, such as the large predatory Agriotherium, were present in the African ecosystems during the Pliocene–Pleistocene epochs ~6-2.5 million years ago, evidently of Eurasian origin.² Yet Agriotherium belonged to a branch of bear evolution quite apart from modern bears, which are comprised of about 3-4 recognized genera: Helarctos, Tremarctos, Ursus, and sometimes Melursus respectively.

Above ▲ From left to right 1) Eurasian Brown Bear (Ursus arctos artos), the probable ancestor of at least some Maghrebi Brown Bears 2) Atlas Bear (Ursus arctos crowtheri) †, reconstruction based off of descriptions of the pelt collected by French naturalists 3) Syrian Brown Bear (Ursus acrtos syriacus), endangered in the Levant and the greater part of the Middle East, was once present in the northeastern-most corner of Egypt, and so was Africa's 'other' bear (technically speaking) 4) Cave Bear (Ursus speleaus) †, died out in the more distant past; recent genetic analysis has suggested that the Cave Bear was more related to the extant Brown Bear than are some of the Maghrebi Brown Bears sampled in the study, strongly suggesting a necessary distinction of species for the poorly-known Atlas Bear 5) Etruscan Bear (Ursus etruscus) †,the earliest recognized member of the genus Ursus persisted for over 5 million years and finally died out only 11,000 years ago, outliving many of its descendants. Considering the marked genetic distinction between the Maghrebi Brown Bears and extant Eurasina Brown Bears sampled in the study conducted by Calvignac and his colleagues, is it possible that some of the Magbrebi Bears were more closely related to the Etruscan Bear or perhaps direct descendants? This is a very worthwhile consideration, since the Etruscan Bear was not only native to Europe and Asia, but also North Africa... Could the Atlas Bear have been this same species? Cross comparison between cranial remains of the Atlas Bear and the Etruscan Bear could shed further light on this speculation. 6) Agriotherium africanus †, a long-legged and probably more predatory bear, was present in the African Ecosystem ~6-2.5 million years ago, it belonged to the tribe Ursavini.

Since the Atlas Bear was certainly a species of the genus Ursus, the question of its origin must be traced back to a time within the last 5 million years or so and probably more realistically during the course of the late Pleistocene, when Ursus arctos (its suspected forerunner) radiated into it’s many splendid forms and gave rise to Ursus maritimus (the Polar Bear).

Because there is very little doubt about the closeness in relation between the Brown Bear and the Atlas Bear (regardless of whether or not they are different species), and because the genus Ursus most certainly arrived in northern Africa sometime during the late Pleistocene, it can be fairly concluded that the Atlas Bear’s ancestors arrived from either one of two –or a combination of both- major geographical regions: 1) by way of a southward expansion from Mediterranean Europe or 2) by way of a westward expansion from the Levant and the greater part of the Middle East (what is now present-day Israel).Today, the nearest population of living Brown Bears within proximity to the former range of the Atlas Bear lies in the Pyrenees Mountains of northern Spain.³ East, in Syria and Lebanon (the other probable geographical source of African bears), there is a very unique and special race of Brown Bear known as the Syrian Brown Bear (Ursus arctos syriacus) that also inhabits certain regions of the former Soviet Union.

With all that being said however, and in light of North Africa’s rather significant proximity to the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula, it is tempting and perhaps more reasonable to assume that the Atlas Bear had its immediate origins in Europe. It is also tempting to believe that sea levels dropped and regularly exposed land-bridges between Europe and Africa at the Strait of Gibraltar during the successive ice ages –essentially creating a walk in the park for the transcontinental migrations of large terrestrial mammals. But is it a safe assumption -strictly from a geological point of view?

The Mediterranean Sea, notwithstanding Atlas Bears, is a scientific enigma in itself, and while the Strait of Gibraltar is narrow, it substantially deep enough to have never been a land bridge during the recent ice ages. It is otherwise believed that North Africa and Europe haven’t been connected for at least 5 million years.

Yet there is another quite obvious possibility to explain the origins of the Atlas Bear regardless of land bridges or dried up seas...

Within the Atlas Mountains and the greater part of the Maghreb there live a considerable number of other terrestrial mammals that are more characteristically Eurasian (not to mention the great abundance of Ibero-North African flora). The first is the Red Deer (Cervus elaphus barbarus) –Africa’s only native deer- followed by the Wild Boar (Sus scrofa algira), the Mouflon (Ovis aires orientalis or sometimes Ovis orientalis), the now extinct North African Aurochs (Bos primigenius mauretanicus), the Red Fox (Vulpes vulpes), the Wildcat (Felis silvestris lybica), the Least Weasel (Mustela nivalis), and the European River Otter (Lutra lutra). Most of these animals, though they are racially distinct from their counterparts in Europe and Asia, doubtless were descended from migrants of Europe or the Middle East during the Pleistocene or recent Holocene epochs. Correspondingly, there are also a number of terrestrial mammals present on the Iberian Peninsula which are more characteristically Maghrebi, such as the Algerian Hedgehog (Atelerix algiris), the Common Genet (Genetta genetta), and the Egyptian Mongoose (Herpestes ichneumon). It is also worth mentioning that the Barbary Macaque (Macaca sylvanus), native to North Africa and the Atlas Mountains, is also native to the Rock of Gibraltar on the southernmost tip of Spain –it is the only European primate aside from human beings.

So, how might all of these animals have arrived to North Africa if not by land? By sea of course! It is also completely within the realm of possibility that such populations of animals were established (or genetically augmented) by a successive colonization of dispersing individuals who swam across the strait’s 7.7 miles of seawater. This is especially not hard to believe when considering the aquatic versatility of Brown Bears in other parts of the world. Some insular Brown Bears, such as those once found in Britain, Ireland, and Japan, most certainly populated those landmasses when they were connected to the continent by way of exposed land bridges during the Ice Ages.

In any case, bears –and a score of other more characteristically Eurasian animals- ended up in North Africa, whether by land bridges in the Ice Age, dried up seas, the comparatively simpler route of migration from the Levant to North Africa, human introduction, or swimming. But what can be said about the bear itself besides its mysterious origin? Was it truly a Brown Bear? Or was it another species in its own right? And if it was, could its origin still be traced back to Pleistocene Europe? Pleistocene Europe, while home to Ursus arctos, was also home to the famous Cave Bear (Ursus speleaus) as well as the Etruscan Bear (Ursus etruscus), which is thought to be the ancestor of all bears classified within the genus Ursus and which persisted amongst its evolutionary descendants up until 11,000 years ago.⁴

▲ Bears in the Mediterranean: A map illustrating possible explanations for the origin of the Atlas Bear. (1) Eurasian Brown Bear (Ursus arctos arctos) EXTANT (2) Cave Bear (Ursus speleaus) † ~10,000 years ago (3) Etruscan Bear (Ursus etruscus) † 10,000 years ago (4) Atlas Bear (Ursus arctos crowtheri) † Possibly at late as the mid 19^th century (5) Ursus arctos faidherbi † Pleistocene (6) Ursus arctos larteti † Pleistocene (7) Syrian Brown Bear (Ursus arctos syriacus) EXTANT (8) Agriotherium † 2.5 mya.

Recent studies have indicated that there was a surprising size range in Maghrebi Bears. However, it is generally accepted that they were relatively small -being roughly the size of the American Black Bear. The Atlas Bear was certainly not descended from the Cave Bear therefore, but more likely from the Brown Bear, the Etruscan Bear, or an intermediate form. The two subspecies of Brown Bears that have been uncovered from Pleistocene fossil deposits of northern Africa have been named and identified as Ursus arctos faidherbi and Ursus arctos larteti. The recent presence of these bears in African ecosystems seems to strongly indicate that the Atlas Bear was, in all likelihood, descended from Ursus arctos after all, but other clues as to its true origin can be further derived from methods of modern science.

Recent genetic studies which have traced the mitochondrial DNA of Atlas Bear specimens have revealed quite a lot of interesting information, both in regards to the proper classification of the bear as well as its likely ancestry and geographical origin. Yet the implications of some of these finds are just as inconclusive and mysterious as ever, perhaps invoking more questions than answers.

To begin with, modern Brown Bears are divided into five mitochondrial lineages or clades, which are listed in the box below. These lineages correlate fairly consistently with the geographical distributions of all of the major subspecies of extant Brown Bears now recognized in the modern world.

Interestingly, these studies have concluded that the Brown Bears of the Maghreb were not a genetically homogeneous population and that there were at least two mitochondrial lineages of Brown Bears coexisting in North Africa up until the beginning of the first millennia AD. “…two of the most recent Brown Bear remains ever found in Africa (those found in the Akouker Cave in Algeria, dating to ~326 AD and ~456 AD respectively), shows the presence of the already recognized Clade V haplotype on the continent” (Calvignac, 1967), further suggesting that –however possible- there was indeed a genetic flow into Africa from Europe by way of the Strait of Gibraltar (the Akouker bears revealed mitochondrial sequences almost identical to that of the living Iberian bears of Cantabria). Yet, the specimens which were collected from the Takouatz Cave of Algeria and the El Ksiba Cave of Morocco (3 samples dating ~5,339-7,614 BC from Takouatz and one sample dating ~726 AD from El Ksiba) revealed a very different composition, and appeared to be of a strongly divergent lineage previously unrecognized among the Brown Bear clades. All five mitochondrial lineages of extant Brown Bears can be classified into one large haplogroup, but this sixth clade appears to be different enough to be categorized as an ancient offshoot –a basal clade whose origins were either developed uniquely in Africa or simply lost everywhere but North Africa due to lineage sorting during the late Pleistocene.

Perhaps what is most remarkable about the revelation of Clade VI apart from the fact that it is now extinct is that its degree of genetic deviation –evidently ancient- is substantial enough to perpetuate the debate of the proper classification for Maghrebi Brown Bears. “It’s divergence from all other living Brown Bears is striking: at the maximum 11.3% for the mtCR sequences and 5.9% for the cyt b ones, values which are to compare to the minimum values of divergence between the Brown Bear and its now-extinct sister species (the Cave Bear), respectively, 9% for the mtCR and 5.7% for the cyt b sequences” (Calvignac, 1968).

Thus, it may be fairly surmised that with at least two very different Brown Bear populations living contemporaneously in North Africa up until the early part of the first millennia AD, the animal generically labeled as the Atlas Bear may have in fact been a genetic fusion of mixed ancestry and geographical origin (coming from both the Iberian Peninsula and the Middle East at varying stages and to varying degrees throughout the ages). Therefore, the extant though critically endangered Syrian Brown Bear (U. arctos syriacus) which still exists in the Levant⁵, as well as the few remaining Pyrenean Brown Bears left in northern Spain, may share close relations with the now extinct Atlas Bear.⁶

Aside from new and compelling genetic studies, there are certain known anatomical differences in the morphology of at least some of the Maghrebi bears, which further elicit the understandable suspicion that they were in fact a separate species apart from Ursus arctos. Yet it may be stated that modern specimens of Atlas Bears are very few and consist entirely of fragmented subfossils found in caves –the most recent of which dates to ~726 AD.

A general appearance of the bear has been pieced together from numerous sources, though how standard the following description was for the whole population is largely guesswork.

As previously mentioned, the Atlas Bear –short-faced, shaggy, and small- was generally about the size of the American Black Bear (Ursus americanus), although more heavily muscled. This would have probably placed its typical weight range anywhere between 200-500 lbs. for males, and 100-300 lbs. for females (also assuming they were as dimorphic as other living species of bears). Their fur was wooly and thick, dark brown to blackish in coloration, with belly fur and undersides lighter and of a rufuous-orange complexion. The claws of the Atlas Bear were apparently quite short, which seems to indicate that –given its smaller size- it may have been capable of climbing trees.

Some might claim that further clues to the physical appearance of the bear can be partly derived from mosaic images in Roman art, which some researchers have identified as probable ‘Atlas Bears’ (though how valid these claims are can really only be verified if the images are truly North African).⁷ From these few published images, it appears as though the animal retained some characteristics that are very unique to Brown Bears –such as the defining shoulder hump, the upturned, concave nose, and the smaller, rounded ears.

It is believed that Atlas Bears probably fed mostly on ripe acorns (such as those belonging to the Algerian Oak), nuts, fruits, succulent roots, edible foliage, and occasional animal protein (a typical bear diet). A fairly accurate blueprint of the Atlas Bear’s diet could be derived from study of dental tooth-wear patterns as well as trace chemicals found within the bone tissue, but it appears that no such work has been either conducted or extensively published.

Ursus arctos crowtheri –once present in the vast territory spanning the region from Morocco to Libya- has all but vanished, and Berber country has no more bears.

What happened to this superb and unique animal? What or whom is responsible for its disappearance? It was likely a combination of several known factors which led to its extinction.

The depletion of the Atlas Bear (as well as the extinction of the Carthaginian Elephant Loxodonta africana pharaoensis and the European Lion Panthera leo tartarica) began with the expansion of the Roman Empire, which captured bears and other animals to be used as battle fodder for the savage entertainment of its gladiatorial arenas. Over the centuries, thousands upon thousands of bears (from Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East) were seized from the wilderness and pitted against gladiators, lions, tigers, and other animals –all of them routinely starved to induce desperation and increase natural aggression. It was a brutal and perhaps unfair end for an animal, which, in all truth, would have otherwise spent its comparatively less violent life eating acorns and honey in the mountains.

It has been speculated that at least some Atlas Bears may have in fact been ‘feral’ bears exported from Europe, and that the presence of bears in Africa may be partially if not entirely explained by an accidental or purposeful introduction by the Romans and Carthaginians who used the bears in battle arenas. This could at least be one possible explanation for the presence of the Clade V haplotype in some specimens, however, with the recent and profound discovery of Clade VI, and with the earlier presence of Ursus arctos faidherbi and Ursus arctos larteti in the Maghreb during the late Pleistocene, it may be fairly stated that the majority of these bears had become native to North Africa due to the natural dispersion of the species in ancient times (further verified by ¹⁴ C tests of the Takouatz bears, which predated the Romans by 5-7 millennia).⁸

After Roman cultural-political influence diminished and eventually faded out of northern Africa and Morocco, the Atlas Bears were further reduced by natural environmental changes which dried up their natural woodland habitats and expanded the desert. Continued over-hunting and over-harvesting by Berber tribesmen, Arabs, and finally pressure from European zoo collectors in the centuries that followed pushed the bear to the brink of extinction. The last known Atlas Bear was probably killed in the Tétouan Mountain Range in the late 19^th century.

If indeed human beings were the greatest catalysts in the extinction of the Atlas Bear, what more can or should be said, but that our generation has been impoverished by the unnecessary loss of this very unique and very mysterious animal.

BROWN BEAR SUBSPECIES (Ursus arctos) ▼

1. Common English Name (Latin Name) NATURAL RANGE PRIOR TO 1800, notes

† Extinct

•Several dozen suggestions have been made for the number of Brown Bear subspecies, for simplicity’s sake, and in light of their uniqueness, 15 are listed here.

1. Eurasian Brown Bear (Ursus arctos arctos) EUROPE AND ASIA

2. Atlas Bear (Ursus arctos crowtheri) NORTH AFRICA, U. crowtheri by some authors †

3. Syrian Brown Bear (Ursus arctos syriacus) MIDDLE EAST, SW ASIA

4. Himalayan Brown Bear (Ursus arctos isabellinus) HIMALAYAS, CENTRAL ASIA

5. Tibetan Blue Bear (Ursus arctos pruinosus) HIGH TIBETAN PLATEAU

6. Gobi Bear (Ursus arctos gobiensis) MONGOLIA, similar to the Grizzly Bear, inhabiting the Gobi Desert

7. East Siberian Brown Bear (Ursus arctos collaris) EASTERN SIBERIA

8. Ussuri Brown Bear (Ursus arctos lasiotus) USSURILAND

9. Kamchatka Bear (Ursus arctos beringianus) KAMCHATKA PENINSULA, paralleling the Kodiak Brown Bear and other coastal Alaskan Brown Bears in size and behavior, the two populations are genetically very closely related and are separated by only a marginal distance across the Bering Sea.

10. Hokkaido Brown Bear (Ursus arctos yesoensis) JAPAN †

11. Kodiak Bear (Ursus arctos middendorffi) COASTAL ALASKA, on average, this is the largest bear in the world, only exceeded in size by exceptionally large male polar bears, which are also longer and taller by comparison.

12. Baranof Island Bear (Ursus arctos sitkensis or U. a. dalli) ADMIRALTY, BARANOF, and CHICHIGOF ISLANDS ALASKA, curiously, genetic tests have indicated that these bears are more related to Polar Bears (Ursus maritimus) than to other Brown Bears (though they are superficially more similar to the latter). Baranof Island is home to one of the highest densities of Brown Bears in North America.

13. Grizzly Bear (Ursus arctos horriblis) NORTH AMERICA WEST OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER, the grizzly bear –once a common animal- has been exterminated from most of its former range in the continental United States, save certain wilderness areas in Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho (and of course, Alaska). Most grizzlies now live in western Canada and Alaska.

14. California Grizzly (Ursus arctos californicus) PACIFIC COAST NORTH AMERICA, CALIFORNIA †

15. Mexican Grizzly (Ursus arctos nelsoni) MEXICO, SW UNITED STATES, Once inhabiting northern Mexico, New Mexico, and Arizona, this bear went extinct sometime during the course of the late 1960’s, it’s last strongholds were in the states of Chihuahua and Sonora †

FOOTNOTES▼

1. It is suspected that the Barbary Lion’s irreplaceable racial composition remains in tact and pure in some captive lions, which are believed to be descended from lions caught generations before in northern Africa. Many of these male individuals also manifest a marked degree of extensive mane development –a defining characteristic of mature male Barbary Lions, which grew very dark manes that frequently extended all the way down the length of the belly. There has been some talk of initiating a selective breeding program which ‘breeds back’ the Barbary Lion from captive individuals that exhibit favorable traits. A subsequent reintroduction program has also been discussed. The Barbary Leopard’s extinction is not absolute; it may still survive in small numbers in Morocco, Algeria, and possibly Egypt. The Barbary Leopard had thicker, darker fur than its living counterparts in Subsaharic Africa.

2. Agriotherium –existing from the Miocene-Pleistocene epochs of North America, Eurasia, and Africa ~13.6-2.5 million years ago- was similar in size and form to the later Arctodus (the giant Short-faced Bear) and possessed powerful jaws that had the capacity to crush bone. Agriotherium also retained some very primitive, dog-like characteristics that distinguished it from other bears which existed and evolved during the same time period.

3. Unfortunately, these Pyrenean bears are only a remnant population of Eurasian Brown Bears which once existed in strong numbers throughout the Iberian Peninsula and the rest of Europe, they are believed to number only a paltry 14-18 bears, with a lack of breeding females.

4. The Cave Bear (Ursus speleaus) and the Brown Bear (Ursus arctos) are thought to have diverged 1.4-1.2 million years ago, much longer before the divergence of Ursus arctos and Ursus maritimus.

5. It is worth mentioning that the Syrian Brown Bear’s natural range once extended into the northeastern-most corner of modern day Egypt (they have been exterminated throughout most of their historical range but exist in small numbers in Iran, Iraq, and Turkey); thus, the Atlas Bear was not technically Africa’s ‘only’ bear in recent millennia. It is worth mentioning that none of the haplotypes unique to North African bears were found in the living population of Middle Eastern bears –according to a recent study. Still, this does not entirely rule out the likelihood that the Atlas Bears had ancestral origins in the Middle East during the Pleistocene, as the living sample population of Middle Eastern bears are comprised of very few –though genetically diverse- individuals. This could also further support the possibility that the Clade VI haplotype was developed solely in Africa, where it evidently never left.

6. These findings reveal that the evolutionary origin of North African Brown Bears is complicated and puzzling. It may also be stated that with the strong genetic divergence of the bears which exhibited the previously unknown Clade VI haplotype, it can also be reasonably speculated that some Maghrebi bears could be justly regarded as a unique species apart from Ursus arctos. Whether these two populations interbred and mixed genes successfully is not yet known, and it throws the classification of the Atlas Bear into further confusion. Were North African Brown Bears one subspecies, two subspecies, one species, or two different species? For now, all that can be safely surmised is that the Atlas Bear was genetically heterogeneous and therefore likely had its racial origins in several geographical sources –namely, Europe and the Middle East.

7. Such claims are truthfully invalid if these mosaic images were encountered in Europe. Most of the bears used in the gladiatorial games were logically of European or West Asian origin, since these were the most immediately available and the easiest to transport. There is little doubt that the Atlas Bear was a victim of the Roman battle arenas, but just how much it was significantly depleted by the Romans and Carthaginians for this purpose is largely a historical assumption. It is more likely that the bears were killed outright and over-hunted in the wilderness by various groups of North African peoples in the recent millennia (including the Romans and Carthaginians).

8. It has been questioned sometimes whether the Atlas Bear ever existed at all, the argument in recent decades was based off of the fact that there are no skins or bones preserved for study (deceased zoo animals in the 1800s were apparently never skeletonized or archived). However, as previously detailed, Maghrebi Brown Bear subfossils dating to millennia within the recent Holocene have confirmed that the Atlas Bear did in fact exist, it is from these few ancient bones that the most accurate information on morphology, diet, and genetic composition can be derived.

REFERENCES▼

Calvignac, Sébastien., Hughes, Sandrine., Tougard, Christelle., Michaux, Jacques., Thévenot, Michel., Philippe, Michel., Hamdine, Watik., Hänni, Catherine. “Ancient DNA Evidence for the Loss of a Highly Divergent Brown Bear Clade during Historical Times.” Molecular Ecology 17 (2008): 1,962-970. 7 June 2010 <http://www.sebastiencalvignac.fr/downloads/calvignac2008atlasbrownbear.pdf>

Calvignac, Sébastien., Hughes, Sandrine., Hänni, Catherine. “Genetic Diversity of Endangered Brown Bear (Ursus arctos) Populations at the Crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa.” Diversity and Distributions (2009): 1-9. 7 June 2010

<http://www.sebastiencalvignac.fr/downloads/calvignac2009syrianbrownbear.pdf>

Hamdine, Watik., Michaux, Jacques., Thévenot, Michel. “Recent History of the Brown Bear in the Maghreb.” CR Acad Sci III. Jul. 1998: 565-70. 7 June 2010 <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10877599>

Loreille, Odile., Orlando, Ludivoc., Patou-Mathis, Maryléne., Philippe, Michel., Taberlet, Pierre., Hänni, Catherine. “Ancient DNA Analysis Reveals Divergence of the Cave Bear, Ursus speleaus, and Brown Bear, Ursus arctos, lineages.” Current Biology Volume 11, Issue 3, 6 Feb (2001): 200-203. 7 June 2010

Dobson, M. “Mammal Distributions in the Western Mediterranean: The Role of Human Intervention.” Mammal Review Volume 28, No. 2 (1998): 77-88. 7 June 2010 <http://www.egs.mmu.ac.uk/users/shoon/eg2116/WebDocs/mkd-mammal.pdf>

Straus, Lawrence Guy. “Africa and Iberia in the Pleistocene.” Quaternary International Volume 75, Issue 1, Jan 2001: 91-102. 7 June 2010

Bonfiglio, Laura., Mangano, Gabriella., Marra, Antonella Cinzia., Masini, Federico., Pavia, Marco., Petruso, Daria. “Pleistocene Calabrian and Sicilian Bioprovinces.” Geobios Volume 35, Supplement 1, Dec 2002: 29-39. 7 June 2010

Day, D., The Doomsday Book of Animals: A Natural History of Vanished Species. New York: Viking, 1981.

Howell, F. Clark., and Bourliére, François. African Ecology and Human Evolution. London, Great Britain: Routledge, 2004.

Attenborough, D., The First Eden: The Mediterranean World and Man. New York: Little, Brown & Company, 1987.

MacDonald, David W., The Princeton Encyclopedia of Mammals. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006.

Ellenberger, W., and Baum H., H. Dittrich. An Atlas of Animal Anatomy for Artists. Second Revised and Expanded Edition, New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1956.

Burt, William Henry., Grossenheider, Richard Philip. Peterson Field Guides: A Field Guide to the Mammals of North America north of Mexico. 3^rd Ed. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1980.

SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING▼

GHOST GRIZZLIES by David Peterson

THE FIRST EDEN: THE MEDITERRANEAN WORLD AND MAN by David Attenborough