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Profile
True to Life?

Profile

Species: pristinus, simus
Range: Quaternary (Pleistocene-Holocene, 2 MYA to 10,000 YA) from North America
Size estimate: 6 ft high at shoulder (8-12 feet tall when standing), 1 ton
Discovery: Joseph Leidy, 1854
Classification: mammalia, carnivora, ursidae, tremarctinae

True to Life?

Since no one has ever seen a living dinosaur, and the missing pieces of the fossil record withhold important clues to their appearance, no artistic representation of a dinosaur ever gets it 100% right. On top of that, new discoveries can change our ideas of extinct creatures drastically. So, how close does this sculpture come to what we know of the original animal?

• Though often called a short-faced bear, Arctodus’ snout isn’t proportionally shorter compared to other bears, but it does appear so because its snout is comparatively deeper and broader. The Arctodus found in the vicinity of Huntingdon reservoir is noted to have an exceptionally short snout, though. This sculpture does seem to reference the broadness of the muzzle, but the nose itself is much smaller than it should be. Arctodus and other tremarctine bears have notably larger noses.
• The canine teeth on this sculpture may look ridiculously thick, but they did grow that robust, maybe even thicker. Such thick teeth have led to speculation that Arctodus spent a lot of time cracking bones, but not much evidence supports it at this time.
• Arctodus’ paws resemble the pattern found in its surviving relative Tremarctos, the spectacled bear of South America. The toes and fingers are comparatively long, and trackways associated with Arctodus suggest they splayed out, leading to wide paws which make sense for an Ice Age bear that might have to deal with snow on a regular basis, especially in the northern end of its range, Alaska. Like other canids, they could not retract their claws.
• In addition to the “short” face, long limbs often characterize this genus. The apparent length of the limbs might be exaggerated by another optical illusion, since Arctodus had a proportionately shorter torso than many other bears. Even so, its long limbs and variations in their design suggest that Arctodus may have maintained larger ranges than modern bears—which makes sense for its unusual size—and may even have run faster despite its typically ursine plantigrade posture. Such flat feet are what allow bears to rear on their hind limbs as shown here. This sculpture may skew a little too much toward more typical ursine proportions, though at 10 feet tall it does match the height of what many consider the average for a male Arctodus simus, the larger species. One of the largest specimens of A. simus was recovered in the early 1980s in the Salt Lake Valley (the first discovered in Utah, incidentally, though not the last); it may have measured 11-14 feet tall in this standing pose, with estimates for its weight ranging from 1400 lbs to possibly over a ton.
• Then again, this statue may represent an exceptionally large Arctodus pristinus male, seeing as how the comparatively lithe Smilodon sculptures reacting to it appear to represent the smallest species for that genus, Smilodon gracilis. Both species shared territory in Florida at least.
• Yes, we know it’s not the greatest sculpture, but what it lacks in style it makes up for in general anatomical accuracy. We do plan to replace it at some point in the future with a sculpture that does this species a little more justice in terms of inspiring awe.