Bergman's Bear
Encyclopedia : B : BE : BER : Bergman's Bear
The Bergman's Bear (Ursus arctos piscator) is allegedly an extinct subspecies of the Brown Bear that lived in the Kamchatka Peninsula. The bear was identified and named by Swedish zoologist Sten Bergman in 1920 [link], but it is unclear if his classification is recognized by the larger scientific community.
Bergman determined that the bear was a separate species after examining a hide (which had fur very different from other local bears) and series of footprints, measuring 14.5 x 10 inches, which he judged to be much larger than other bears on Kamchatka.
Interest in the bear was revitalized in the 1960s. Hunter Rodion Sivobolov reported claims by Kamchatka natives of an unusually large bear they called either the Irkuiem (roughly meaning "trousers pulled down" due to the appearance of the bear's hind legs), or the "God bear" due to its large size. Bergman's Bear was known to natives as the God Bear due to its large size: its front paw was measured to be in size.
Based on Sivobolov's description, biologist N.K. Vereshchagin sugegsted that the God bear might be a relict Arctodus simus, a massive extinct bear. This idea was coolly recieved by the scientific comminuty.
External Link
- [Bergman's Bear, By Andrew D. Gable] URL accessed July 9, 2006
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.