Cave Bear Claw Canine and Molar

$45.00

The Cave Bear was a species of bear that lived in Europe during the Pleistocene and became extinct at the beginning of the Last Glacial Maximum. Cave Bear teeth were very large and show greater wear than most modern bear species.

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Description

Cave Bear Claw Canine and Molar are museum quality polyurethane casts. Made in USA. Claw measures 1.57 inches, Molar Tooth measures 4.6 inches or 2.3cm, Canine measures 1.7 inches. Our precise tooth and claw replica can be used as a teaching tool, museum exhibit, home décor, or office décor.

Ursus spelaeus was a species of bear that lived in Europe and Asia during the Pleistocene and became extinct about 24,000 years ago during the Last Glacial Maximum.

The cave bear had a very broad, domed skull with a steep forehead. Its stout body had long thighs, massive shins and in-turning feet, making it similar in skeletal structure to the brown bear.

Both the word “cave” and the scientific name spelaeus are used because fossils of this species were mostly found in caves. This reflects the views of experts that cave bears may have spent more time in caves than the brown bear, which uses caves only for hibernation.

Cave bear skeletons were first described in 1774 by Johann Friederich Esper in his book Newly Discovered Zoolites of Unknown Four Footed Animals.

While scientists at the time considered that the skeletons could belong to apes, canids, felids, or even dragons or unicorns, Esper postulated that they actually belonged to polar bears.

Twenty years later, Johann Christian Rosenmüller, an anatomist at the Leipzig University, gave the species its binomial name.

The bones were so numerous that most researchers had little regard for them. During World War I, with the scarcity of phosphate dung, earth from the caves where cave bear bones occurred were used as a source of phosphates.

When the “dragon caves” in Austria’s Styria region were exploited for this purpose, only the skulls and leg bones were kept.

Many caves in Central Europe have skeletons of cave bears inside, for example the Heinrichshöhle in Hemer, the Dechenhöhle in Iserlohn, Germany. A complete skeleton, five complete skulls, and 18 other bones were found inside Jaskinia Niedźwiedzia (bear cave) in 1966 in Poland. In Romania, in a cave called Bears’ Cave, 140 cave bear skeletons were discovered in 1983.

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Additional information

Weight 1 lbs
Cave Bear Facts

Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Carnivora
Family: Ursidae
Genus: Ursus
Species: †U. spelaeus
Binomial name: †Ursus spelaeus