Relationships and Structure of the Short-Faced Bear, Arctotherium, from the Pleistocene of California

Abstract

The peculiar short-faced Californian bear, known as Arctotherium simum, was described by Cope in 1879 from a single specimen, consisting of a skull minus the lower jaw, found by J. A. Richardson in 1878 in Potter Creek Cave on the McCloud River in northern California. Since the description of A. simum, a nearly perfect skull with lower jaw and a large quantity of additional material, representing nearly all parts of the skeleton and dentition of this species, has been obtained from the deposits of Potter Creek Cave as a result of further work carried on for the University of California by E. L. Furlong and by W. J. Sinclair in 1902 and 1903.

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