National Geographic | Giant Prehistoric Bear | New Documentary HD 2018
Channel: Peter Pan
Date: 14/12/2017

National Geographic | Giant Prehistoric Bear | New Documentary HD 2018

Today, man is the dominant predator on the planet. Yet we have occupied this position for a relatively short period of time—the earliest known man, Homo habilis, first appeared around 2.3 million years ago. Although we dominate the animals of today, many of these animals have extinct relatives that were a lot larger and more vicious than what we’re familiar with. These animal ancestors look like creatures straight out of our worst nightmares. The frightening aspect is that if mankind vanishes—or merely loses its dominance—these creatures, or something like them, could potentially return again to existence.

Bears are some of the largest mammals on Earth, with the polar bear even holding the title for the largest of all carnivores on land. Arctodus—also known as the short-faced bear—lived in North America during the Pleistocene.  The short-faced bear weighed about one ton (900kg), and when standing on its hind legs it reached a height of fifteen feet (4.6m), making the short-faced bear the largest mammalian predator that ever existed. Although the short-faced bear was a very large carnivore, archeologists have discovered that it was actually a scavenger. Being a scavenger, however, was not at all a bad thing—especially when you’re fighting saber-tooth cats and wolves for a meal. Like many other large animals of the Pleistocene, the short-faced bear lost much of its food source with the arrival of humans.