Plionarctos Temporal range:
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Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Mammalia |
Order: | Carnivora |
Family: | Ursidae |
Subfamily: | Tremarctinae |
Genus: | †Plionarctos Frick, 1926[1] |
Type species | |
†Plionarctos edensis Frick, 1926
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Species | |
†P. harroldorum Tedford & Martin, 2001[2] |
Plionarctos is an extinct genus of bear endemic to North America from the Miocene to the Pliocene,[2] ~10.3—3.3 Mya, existing for about 7 million years.
Indarctos (10.7—9.2 Mya) preceded Plionarctos by only a few thousand years and was a contemporary of that bear and shared its habitat. Plionarctos preceded and was also contemporary with Tremarctos floridanus (4.9 million — 11,000 years ago) and shared its habitat. Plionarctos is the oldest known genus within the subfamily of the short-faced bears (Tremarctinae), and is believed to be ancestral to the clade.