The earliest members of Ursidae belong to the extinct subfamily Amphicynodontinae, including Parictis (late Eocene to early middle Miocene, 38–18 Mya) and the slightly younger Allocyon (early Oligocene, 34–30Mya), both from North America. These animals looked very different from today's bears, being small and raccoon-like in overall appearance, with diets perhaps more similar to that of a badger. Parictis does not appear in Eurasia and Africa until the Miocene. [15] It is unclear whether late-Eocene ursids were also present in Eurasia, although faunal exchange across the Bering land bridge may have been possible during a major sea level low stand as early as the late Eocene (about 37Mya) and continuing into the early Oligocene. [16] European genera morphologically very similar to Allocyon, and to the much younger American Kolponomos (about 18 Mya), [17] are known from the Oligocene, including Amphicticeps and Amphicynodon. [16] There has been various morphological evidence linking amphicynodontines with pinnipeds, as both groups were semi-aquatic, otter-like mammals. [18] [19] [20] In addition to the support of the pinniped–amphicynodontine clade, other morphological and some molecular evidence supports bears being the closest living relatives to pinnipeds. [21] [22] [23] [19] [24] [20] Life restoration of Arctotherium bonariense

I suppose I’m less challenging them than giving them an outlet and some exercise. One of the central threads of both Dogs and Bear is a sort of extreme iteration of societal control, the idea of ‘collaring’ someone so that they cannot say no. It’s a very comfortable relationship for the person at the top, and historically it’s what a great deal of society has been about – setting up structures, hierarchies and class systems that mean the people below, on whom it all depends, are nothing more than machine pieces in someone else’s mechanism. So the system in the books is intentionally extreme, but it’s honestly just a logical end-game for that kind of mindset. How did you find the process of world-building for the practicalities of life on Mars? McTaggart Cowan, I. (1972). "The Status and Conservation of Bears (Ursidae) of the World: 1970". Bears: Their Biology and Management. 2: 343–367. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.483.1402. doi: 10.2307/3872596. JSTOR 3872596. Brown Bear – Threats Grizzlies: Found in 2% of their former range". WWF. Archived from the original on 2016-12-21 . Retrieved 16 January 2017. a b c Krause, J.; Unger, T.; Noçon, A.; Malaspinas, A.; Kolokotronis, S.; Stiller, M.; etal. (2008). "Mitochondrial genomes reveal an explosive radiation of extinct and extant bears near the Miocene-Pliocene boundary". BMC Evolutionary Biology. 8 (220): 220. doi: 10.1186/1471-2148-8-220. PMC 2518930. PMID 18662376.Adrian Tchaikovsky’s latest novel, Bear Head, follows the story of Jimmy who has allowed his modified brain to be rented out for an illegal data dump. However, he soon finds out that said data is, in fact, the cloned intelligence of a political refugee called Honey… who is a bear. Abella, Juan; Alba, David M.; Robles, Josep M.; etal. (2012). "Kretzoiarctos gen. nov., the Oldest Member of the Giant Panda Clade". PLOS ONE. 7 (11): e48985. Bibcode: 2012PLoSO...748985A. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0048985. PMC 3498366. PMID 23155439.

Soibelzon, L. H.; Schubert, B. W. (January 2011). "The Largest Known Bear, Arctotherium angustidens, from the Early Pleistocene Pampean Region of Argentina: With a Discussion of Size and Diet Trends in Bears". Journal of Paleontology. 85 (1): 69–75. doi: 10.1666/10-037.1. hdl: 11336/104215. S2CID 129585554. Archived from the original on 2011-03-10 . Retrieved 2011-06-01. Ward, Paul; Kynaston, Suzanne (1995). Wild Bears of the World. New York: Facts on File. ISBN 978-0-8160-3245-7. OCLC 443610490. Andean Bear Conservation Project". Archived from the original on 2014-02-18 . Retrieved 2014-03-09.Klinka, D. R.; Reimchen, T. E. (2002). "Nocturnal and diurnal foraging behaviour of brown bears ( Ursus arctos ) on a salmon stream in coastal British Columbia" (PDF). Canadian Journal of Zoology. 80 (8): 1317–1322. doi: 10.1139/Z02-123. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2017-08-12 . Retrieved 2017-01-07. Bear meat poisoning in Siberia". BBC News. 21 December 1997. Archived from the original on 2008-12-11 . Retrieved 4 October 2006. Kemp, T.S. (2005). The Origin and Evolution of Mammals. Oxford University Press. p. 260. ISBN 978-0-19-850760-4.

It is infinitely more fun, to be honest. Especially for a first-person narrative. All of my first-person leads are flawed or even openly horrible people. Stefan Advani ( Cage Of Souls) is a self-interested coward, Gary Rendell ( Walking With Aldebaran) has serious physical and mental issues that slowly creep out over his narrative, and the unnamed narrator of One Day All This Will Be Yours is frankly a horrible, horrible person. So yes, Jimmy is a wretched, miserable and untrustworthy character thrust into a spotlight he really doesn’t want. But because of that, his perspective on the big picture is much more entertaining. Bear Head was originally named Bear With Me… The morality and reality of control and subjugation are themes that both the reader and even the fictional characters have to face. Did you find you challenged your own thoughts on this? While the polar bear is mostly carnivorous, and the giant panda is mostly herbivorous, the remaining six species are omnivorous with varying diets. With the exception of courting individuals and mothers with their young, bears are typically solitary animals. They may be diurnal or nocturnal and have an excellent sense of smell. Despite their heavy build and awkward gait, they are adept runners, climbers, and swimmers. Bears use shelters, such as caves and logs, as their dens; most species occupy their dens during the winter for a long period of hibernation, up to 100 days. a b c d e Mattson, David. "Foraging Behavior of North American Bears" (PDF). Southwest Biological Science Center. Archived from the original (PDF) on 11 July 2007. Postma, Laura. "The word for "bear" ". University of Pittsburgh Slovak Studies Program. Archived from the original on 2017-11-22 . Retrieved 21 March 2018.Derocher, Andrew E. (2012). Polar Bears: A Complete Guide to Their Biology and Behavior. JHU Press. p.212. ISBN 978-1-4214-0305-2. Bears in captivity have for centuries been used for entertainment. They have been trained to dance, [129] and were kept for baiting in Europe from at least the 16th century. There were five bear-baiting gardens in Southwark, London, at that time; archaeological remains of three of these have survived. [130] Across Europe, nomadic Romani bear handlers called Ursari lived by busking with their bears from the 12th century. [131] Owen, M. A.; Swaisgood, R. R.; Slocomb, C.; Amstrup, S. C.; Durner, G. M.; Simac, K.; Pessier, A. P. (2014). "An experimental investigation of chemical communication in the polar bear". Journal of Zoology. 295 (1): 36–43. doi: 10.1111/jzo.12181. Soibelzon, L. H.; Tonni, E.P.; Bond, M. (2005). "The fossil record of South American short-faced bears (Ursidae, Tremarctinae)" (PDF). Journal of South American Earth Sciences. 20 (1–2): 105–113. Bibcode: 2005JSAES..20..105S. doi: 10.1016/j.jsames.2005.07.005. hdl: 10915/5366. Tedford, R.H.; Barnes, L.G.; Ray, C.E. (1994). "The early Miocene littoral ursoid carnivoran Kolponomos: Systematics and mode of life" (PDF). Proceedings of the San Diego Society of Natural History. 29: 11–32. Archived from the original (PDF) on 22 September 2012.

Browne, Ray B.; Browne, Pat (2001). The Guide to United States Popular Culture. Popular Press. p.944. ISBN 978-0-87972-821-2. Peters, G.; Owen, M.; Rogers, L. (2007). "Humming in bears: a peculiar sustained mammalian vocalization". Acta Theriologica. 52 (4): 379–389. doi: 10.1007/BF03194236. S2CID 24886480. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2014-02-03 . Retrieved 2017-09-08. a b Stonorov, D.; Stokes, A. W. (1972). "Social behavior of the Alaska brown bear" (PDF). Bears: Their Biology and Management. 2: 232–242. doi: 10.2307/3872587. JSTOR 3872587. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2013-07-22 . Retrieved 2017-01-11. Dogs Of War was always a standalone. It did decently well though, so that put it on the top shelf as far as possible follow-on material went. However, until the aforementioned visitation, I honestly no actual idea of what that might be, save for some stuff about possible more military marching around, which didn’t seem promising.The New World short-faced bears (Tremarctinae) differentiated from Ursinae following a dispersal event into North America during the mid-Miocene (about 13Mya). [27] They invaded South America (≈2.5 or 1.2Ma) following formation of the Isthmus of Panama. [29] Their earliest fossil representative is Plionarctos in North America (c.10–2Ma). This genus is probably the direct ancestor to the North American short-faced bears (genus Arctodus), the South American short-faced bears ( Arctotherium), and the spectacled bears, Tremarctos, represented by both an extinct North American species ( T. floridanus), and the lone surviving representative of the Tremarctinae, the South American spectacled bear ( T. ornatus). [16] Fossil of the cave bear ( Ursus spelaeus), a relative of the brown bear and polar bear from the Pleistocene epoch in Europe Elizabethan Playhouses and Bear Baiting Arenas Given Protection". Historic England. 26 September 2016. Archived from the original on 2017-01-04 . Retrieved 4 January 2017. The raccoon-sized, dog-like Cephalogale is the oldest-known member of the subfamily Hemicyoninae, which first appeared during the middle Oligocene in Eurasia about 30Mya. [16] The subfamily includes the younger genera Phoberocyon (20–15Mya), and Plithocyon (15–7Mya). A Cephalogale-like species gave rise to the genus Ursavus during the early Oligocene (30–28Mya); this genus proliferated into many species in Asia and is ancestral to all living bears. Species of Ursavus subsequently entered North America, together with Amphicynodon and Cephalogale, during the early Miocene (21–18Mya). Members of the living lineages of bears diverged from Ursavus between 15 and 20Mya, [25] [26] likely via the species Ursavus elmensis. Based on genetic and morphological data, the Ailuropodinae (pandas) were the first to diverge from other living bears about 19Mya, although no fossils of this group have been found before about 11 Mya. [27] [28] Prajapati, Utkarsh; Koli, Vijay K.; Sundar, K.S. Gopi (2021). "Vulnerable sloth bears are attracted to human food waste: a novel situation in Mount Abu town, India". Oryx. 55 (5): 699–707. doi: 10.1017/S0030605320000216. S2CID 233677898.