Plionarctos

Plionarctos is an extinct genus of short-faced bear endemic to North America from the Late Miocene to the Pliocene.

Plionarctos

via iDigBio · CC BY-NC-SA · via iDigBio. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
ArctotheriiniPBDB
Diet
herbivore, carnivorePBDB, for Ursidae
Life habit
ground dwellingPBDB, for Ursidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria

Time the record covers

At least 3.9 million years on record.

The record covers at least 4.7 Mya to 774 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 9.4 Mya to 129 ka.

Miocene — about 4 of 14 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 4 of 14 occurrencesPliocenePleistocene — about 6 of 14 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 0 of 14 occurrences9.6–9.2 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences9.2–8.9 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences8.9–8.6 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences8.6–8.3 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences8.3–7.9 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences7.9–7.6 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences7.6–7.3 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences7.3–6.9 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences6.9–6.6 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences6.6–6.3 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences6.3–5.9 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences5.9–5.6 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences5.6–5.3 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences5.3–5.0 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences5.0–4.6 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences4.6–4.3 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences4.3–4.0 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences4.0–3.6 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences3.6–3.3 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences3.3–3.0 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences3.0–2.6 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences2.6–2.3 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences2.3–2.0 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences2.0–1.6 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences1.6–1.3 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences1.3–990 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences990 ka–660 ka Mya — about 0.7 occurrences660 ka–330 ka Mya — about 2 occurrences330 ka–0 Mya — about 1 occurrence4.7 Mya774 ka9.9 Mya0 Mya

14 occurrences of Plionarctos on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

14 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

4 formations

Peace River — 27.90°N, 81.80°WPeace River — 27.68°N, 81.95°WRingold — 47.00°N, 118.50°WRingold — 46.30°N, 119.10°WAsh Hollow — 42.70°N, 100.00°WMt. Eden — 33.90°N, 117.00°W

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The named rock units Plionarctos has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 8 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Plionarctos and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Plionarctos and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

290 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 14 sites for Plionarctos, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

7 references

Each of the 14 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Plionarctos

Source
iDigBio
Credit
via iDigBio
Licence
CC BY-NC-SA
Commercial use
the licence does not allow it

No 3D scan of Plionarctos was found in Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itArctotheriini through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Frick 1926