# Tremarctos floridanus

Tremarctos floridanus is an extinct species of bear in the family Ursidae, subfamily Tremarctinae. T. floridanus became extinct at the end of the last ice age, 11,000 years ago. Its fossils have been found throughout the Southeastern United States, in northeastern Mexico, and in Belize from the Rancholabrean epoch (250,000–11,000 years ago), and from earlier epochs at some sites in western North America.

## Names

Tremarctos floridanus is called the Florida spectacled bear, Florida cave bear, or rarely Florida short-faced bear.

## Description

T. floridanus is presumed to closely resemble its modern relative that shares the same genus, the spectacled bear (Tremarctos ornatus) found in the Andes Mountains of South America. Intermediate in size between a modern American black bear and grizzly bear, it was noticeably larger than its South American relation though still much smaller than the fellow Tremarctinae bear Arctodus. Arctodus was a contemporary of and shared its habitat with T. floridanus. Despite one such common name, T. floridanus is not considered a close relative of the cave bear, Ursus spelaeus, which belonged to a different genus and subfamily.
Like modern spectacled bears, T. floridanus was omnivorous and likely subsisted chiefly on plant material with a majority of animal matter consumed being carrion. Similar to the modern American black bear that shares its habitat today; insects, fish, small animals, and hoofed animals such a young deer might have also been hunted on occasion.

## Taxonomy

Originally, Gidley named this animal Arctodus floridanus in 1928. It was recombined as T. floridanus by Kurten (1963), Lundelius (1972) and Kurten and Anderson (1980). The type specimen was found in the Golf Course site of the Melbourne Bone Bed in Melbourne, Florida. The closest living relative of the Florida cave bear is the spectacled bear of South America; they are classified together with the huge short-faced bears in the subfamily Tremarctinae.

## Range

T. floridanus was widely distributed south of the continental ice sheet from Florida along the Gulf Coast through Texas to Nuevo León and north to South Carolina and Tennessee during the Rancholabrean epoch (250,000–11,000 years ago). A few fossil specimens have been reported from the Irvingtonian (2.5 million–250,000 years ago) and Blancan (4.75–1.8 million years ago) epochs in western North America, although western specimens have not been found in the Rancholabrean. Fossils of T. floridanus have been reported from two sites in Belize, at least one of which is also Rancholabrean. While once thought to have had a possible continuation into the Greenlandian stage of the Holocene from presumed 8,000 years old material from the Devil's Den Cave, subsequent research indicates the fossils present were from the Rancholabrean epoch instead.
Fossils of T. floridanus have been found at the following sites:
* Anza-Borrego, California (Irvingtonian epoch)
* Aucilla River in Jefferson County, Florida
* Cebada Cave, Belize
* Cutler Fossil Site, Miami-Dade County, Florida
* Devil's Den Cave, Marion County, Florida
* Edisto Beach, South Carolina (Rancholabrean epoch)
* El Golfo, Sonora (Irvingtonian epoch)
* Extinction Cave, Belize (Rancholabrean epoch)
* Haile Quarry site, Alachua County, Florida
* Harleyville, South Carolina (Rancholabrean epoch)
* Ingleside, Texas
* Myrtle Beach, South Carolina (Rancholabrean epoch)
* Rock Spring, Orange County, Florida
* Runnymede Plantation, South Carolina ("Tremarctos sp.")
* San Josito Cave, Nuevo León (Rancholabrean epoch)
* San Simon, Arizona ("Tremarctos sp.", late Blancan epoch)
* Other sites in Florida, including in Alachua, Brevard, Citrus, Columbia, DeSoto, Duval, Indian River, Lake, Levy, Marion, Miami-Dade, Nassau, Pinellas, St. Johns, Taylor and Volusia counties.