Mexican grizzly bear | |
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Diorama featuring Mexican grizzly bears at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, Illinois, USA | |
Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Mammalia |
Order: | Carnivora |
Family: | Ursidae |
Genus: | Ursus |
Species: | U. arctos |
Subspecies: | U. a. horribilis |
Population: | Mexican grizzly bear |
Synonyms | |
Ursus arctos nelsonis |
The Mexican grizzly bear (Ursus arctos horribilis, formerly Ursus arctos nelsoni)[1] is an extinct population of the grizzly bear in the Southwestern United States and Mexico.
The specimen later designated the holotype of U. a. nelsoni was shot by H. A. Cluff at Colonia Garcia, Chihuahua, in 1899.[2] The extinct California grizzly bear extended slightly south into Baja California. The bears in Durango, Chihuahua, Sonora and central Mexico were likely more related to the bears of Arizona, New Mexico and Texas than to those of California.[citation needed]