ExtinctZoo - Africa Was Once Ruled By Bears

Episode Date: June 10, 2024

Yup, your reading the title right, Africa wasn't always the land of giant cats, rather big fuzzy wuzzy bears.

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Fit for your ambition for Citizens Bank. The Earth today, more commonly known as bears, are one of Earth's mightiest and most successful carnivorans, boasting eight extent species, some of which are their region's apex predators. They have also managed to become Earth's biggest terrestrial predators, holding over half of the top ten spots, with the polar bear claiming first place, with it sometimes weighing over a full ton. Along with size, they got the weapons and the defense to match it, which altogether has let them spread far and wide. Strangely, across Africa's extremely diverse landscape that spans 12 million square miles or

30 million square kilometers, not a single bear species is known, despite many other large predators such as numerous big cats calling it home. However, it wasn't always like this, and for a respectable amount of Africa's history, including rather recently, bears could be found throughout the lands, the most successful of which was the gigantic agriotherium. Hearing this may first make you think of another giant and more well-known bear with a very similar name, the arctatherium. And the two actually did share some features not normally seen in other bears, including

gargantuan size and more importantly shortened snouts. However, despite agriotherium possessing this characteristic, it wasn't a giant short-faced bear like the former, rather a member of the Ercid tribe, Agriotherany, and more specifically a part of the subfamily, Ilyropodene, which today has only one living member, the giant panda, which means that the giant African bear's closest living relative was this guy. In contrast to their relation, pandas and agriotherium were still very different, with one major difference unrelated to biology being their range, as pandas are restricted to a small part of China, while the agriotherium had a worldwide distribution, that along with Africa also

included North America, Europe, India, and parts of East and Southeast Asia. It was also generally much bigger than Pandas, though that being said, not every Agriotherium was a true giant, considering that there were seven species. However, the largest one definitely was a giant. The largest of all the species by far was Agriotherium Afrikanum, who, as its name nicely puts it, was the one that called Africa home. This species was an absolute giant even by bear standards, and outsized nearly every kind of bear known to science, with adults measuring up to two meters or seven feet in length,

while tipping the scales at 750 kilos or 1,650 pounds, which puts it on par with the largest male polar bears. Suffice to say, it was a big boy. And in fact, as far as paleontologists are aware, it was the biggest terrestrial predator around in Africa during its existence, meaning that Africa wasn't always the land of giant cats. Such size would have surely removed adults off of the menu for any predator in its environment, while at the same time making it a potent threat, a threat that's doubled by a monstrous

bite that was the strongest of any known bear, alive or extinct. This power came from its skull shape, which was very wide and short, allowing it to focus immense pressure on a small part of its back teeth with each bite, generating over 4,000 500 newtons in force, which is nearly twice that of a polar bear or grizzly bear, and enough to crush a human femur, the strongest bone in our body. There is a catch, though, because this impressive bite force actually convinced certain paleontologists that it was really just a friendly giant, who preferred greens over meat, since in living bears, those with the weakest bite forces relative to size are typically more

carnivorous, while those with overpowered bites are more herbivorous, like the panda, who uses its 2,600-Newton bite to crush up bamboo shoots. The overall skull shape of the agriotherium was also used as further evidence, as it was found in some ways to resemble a gelata baboon skull, a primate that's known to be vegetarian. Thankfully, the discovery of teeth and subsequent isotopic analysis has cleared up doubts around the agroetherium's diet, showing that it was in fact omnivorous and consumed both large amounts of plant matter and meat. The shape of its teeth, namely the canines, further supported a protein-packed diet, as they

were both large and sharp, which coupled with its power would have easily let them pierced deep into flesh. But even with this new evidence, people were for some reason really against the idea of a giant predatory African bear. And so it was proposed that while the agriotherium did partially consume meat, it was no hunter, and instead it was a specialized scavenger who had weakly built limbs that made it too slow to catch anything. Therefore, it relied on its giant size to intimidate and scare off predators from kills,

which would have included powerful foes such as Nhydrodon, homotherium, and Dinofelus, among others. Once it had secured a kill, it would then use its powerful crushing bite to break up bones and access the bone marrow within. Such a strategy would have no doubt been useful. Yet currently, most paleontologists actually disagree with this proposal and instead believe that agriotherium was both a scavenger and a true predator when it needed to be, using the coverage of trees and tall grass to ambush prey. Additionally, at the time, Africa was home to numerous megafauna, many of which were a bit slow in their own right, thus making ambushes not always necessary. And with Agriotherium's big body and powerful bite,

it didn't have much problem taking down large game like juvenile elephanids, stegodons, hippos, rhinos, and calicathears. Even smaller prey likely ended up in the jaws of agriarches. Othyrium, seeing that living animals that are known to be scavengers and relatively slow, like the sloth bear, have still been documented hunting smaller creatures. Because of this, there's been speculation that even our own bloodline may have met their fate at the paws of this bear, namely Australopithecus, who lived in the same area during the same time. There are also other primates around two, who may have been preyed upon once in a while, including Theropithecus, gorgopithicus, sercopithicoids, and those that are still kicking.

Clearly, this bear saw some things no other bear has, especially when considering the fact that it's the only Ercid member to have colonized sub-Saharan Africa, with its remains being found as far north as Ethiopia and all the way down to South Africa. During its existence, the agriotherium could be found in a mix of dense forests, savannas, and grasslands, where it lived alongside an abundance of life, which in addition to the mentioned potential prey included bovids, snakes, horses, giraffes, ungulates, phylids, hyenas, suidae, birds, crocodilians, and insects. Of course, this only touches the surface when it comes to the different animals that have lived alongside, seeing that Africa had such a high degree of biodiversity back then, and still does.

Sadly, though, agriotherium is no longer counted among such biodiversity, as it disappeared from Africa roughly 3.6 million years ago, marking the end of an 8 million year rain on the continent and the end of bears in sub-Saharan Africa for good. You're probably thinking that its disappearance had something to do with the oppressive heat that much of Africa experiences, and yet, interestingly enough, at the time of its existence, Africa was actually warmer, but began experiencing a drop in temperature right around its extinction, which also coincided with a global decrease known as the Northern Hemisphere Glaciation event, thus leading paleontologists to believe that it was actually this cooling

which led to its extinction. Following its demise, Africa became bearless and remained so for nearly 3 million years. However, against all odds, bears would get another shot of conquering Africa, this time in the form of the Atlas bear. This wasn't really a brand new genus or species, but instead a subspecies of the still-living brown bear that somehow ended up. in northern Africa, where it established itself in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya. Most of the population stuck to the inner parts of the Atlas Mountains, where the climate was a bit cooler and drier, never expanding southwards like Agriotherium, with the Sahara Desert blocking any potential migration attempt. However, in its relatively small home, the Atlas Bear

Still achieved considerable success, thanks to it being one of the largest animals in the mountains, with adults weighing 1,000 pounds or 450 kilograms. This again running to the same. bears Africa's largest terrestrial predators, and made it comparable in size to the other brown bear populations. But what set it apart was a shorter body and long fur, which was reddish-orange on the underside. Furthermore, Atlas Bears preferred a more vegetarian diet compared to other brown bears, with the bulk of their calories coming from roots, acorns and nuts, while the rest was made up of small mammals and carry-on from scavenging. In its environment, it coexisted with a variety of well-known animals, including the extinct North African elephant and Barbary Loll.

lion. Atlas bears also obviously co-existed with modern humans, and interactions with them, or us, were frankly very one-sided in our favor. For a long time, humans and Atlas Bears seldomly interacted, but in 146 AD, after the Romans established a new province in Africa, which they named Africa, things changed, and Atlas Bears quickly found themselves being shipped off to Rome to be used in Gladiator fights against humans and other animals. These exports are often considered to be a contributing factor to the Atlas Bear's extinction. But it didn't completely wipe them out, and they even outlasted the Western Roman Empire by nearly 1,400 years. However, unfortunately in the end, extinction still caught up to them, though not exactly through natural

means, as the introduction of modern firearms to the region were the biggest contributor to their downfall. With guns, people could all of a sudden hunt this bear without risk, and overhunting soon became a big issue. This problem certainly wasn't held by individuals being sent to zoos or collectors around the world as well. And in 1870, it was declared extinct after the last known Atlas Baird was killed by hunters in the Taituan Mountains of northern Morocco, bringing an end to the last African bear. A real tragedy as we have come to discover that Atlas Bearers were extremely unique, as two clades of this Earth had existed, dubbed Clade 5 and Clade 4.

Based upon mitochondrial DNA, Clade 5 bears were found to be indistinguishable from Iberian brown bears, yet Clade 4 shocked paleontologists, because Afts were found that was the same thing Atlas bears in this clade were highly distinct from others, sharing more DNA with Alaskan grizzly bears, and of all things, polar bears as well, leading to a slew of other questions. However, until technology advances or better preserved specimens are found, this mystery about the last African bear shall remain. And it's unlikely that any new bear will pop up in Africa anytime soon. Considering that sub-Saharan Africa is barred off by a large desert, while North Africa is drier than it has ever been in the last 10,000 years. On top of that, you've got large bodies of water on either side of the continent,

meaning that for the foreseeable future, Africa will remain the land. Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel is California's number one entertainment destination for today's superstars. Catch the Jonas Brothers return to the Yamava Theater stage on April 30th, the powerful vocals of Demi Lovato on May 17th, and the signature Southern Country Rock of Eric Church on July 19th. Tickets on sale now at Yamavatheater.com. at Yamava Resort and Casino, celebrating its 40th anniversary. U-N. Must be 21 to enter.

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Of large cats.