Huge Cave Bears: When and Why They Disappeared

Live Science ^ | Nov. 25, 2008 | LiveScience Staff

[Fred Nerks]

my oh my what big teeth you have!

[Fred Nerks]

Another excellent book for those interested particularly in the cave bear is ‘The Cave Bear Story’ by Bjorn Kurten, published in 1976.

http://www.donsmaps.com/bear.html

THE BEAR

[SunkenCiv]

:’)

[Pharmboy]

The morphological features of their chewing apparatus suggest both herbivorous behaviour and important adaptations to a tough vegetarian diet. Results obtained on the stable isotopic yield of cave bear bones are interpreted as indicators of a largely vegetarian diet.[8] The bones of central and western European cave bears matched those of vegetarians in having low levels of nitrogen-15, which is accumulated by meat eaters. However, several cave bear sites in the Peştera cu Oase in the southwestern tip of the Carpathian mountains have shown that the cave bears of that region may have been largely carnivorous, due to higher levels of nitrogen-15 in their bones. This behavior is also evident from very large cave bear tooth marks on young cave bear skulls in Yarimburgaz Cave in western Turkey.[9]

It is thought that cannibalistic scavenging constituted a minor part of an otherwise chiefly vegetarian diet, thus leaving no identifiable isotopic signature in the bones of central and western European specimens. Dental Microwear Analyses indicates that the cave bear may have fed on a greater quantity of bone than it's contemporary, the smaller Eurasian Brown Bear.[8]

From wiki