A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | CH | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9
Sloth bear Temporal range: Late Pliocene to Early Pleistocene – recent
| |
---|---|
![]() | |
Standing Melursus ursinus | |
Scientific classification ![]() | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Mammalia |
Order: | Carnivora |
Family: | Ursidae |
Subfamily: | Ursinae |
Genus: | Melursus Meyer, 1793 |
Species: | M. ursinus
|
Binomial name | |
Melursus ursinus (Shaw, 1791)
| |
![]() | |
Sloth bear range (black – former, green – extant) | |
Synonyms | |
The sloth bear (Melursus ursinus), also known as the Indian bear, is a myrmecophagous bear species native to the Indian subcontinent. It feeds on fruits, ants and termites. It is listed as vulnerable on the IUCN Red List, mainly because of habitat loss and degradation.[1] It is the only species in the genus Melursus.
It has also been called "labiated bear" because of its long lower lip and palate used for sucking up insects.[2] It has long, shaggy fur, a mane around the face, and long, sickle-shaped claws. It is lankier than brown and Asian black bears. It shares features of insectivorous mammals and evolved during the Pleistocene from the ancestral brown bear through divergent evolution.
Sloth bears breed during spring and early summer and give birth near the beginning of winter. When their territories are encroached upon by humans, they sometimes attack them. Historically, humans have drastically reduced these bears' habitat and diminished their population by hunting them for food and products such as their bacula and claws. Sloth bears have been tamed and used as performing animals and as pets.[3]
Taxonomy
George Shaw in 1791 named the species Bradypus ursinus. In 1793, Meyer named it Melursus lybius, and in 1817, de Blainville named it Ursus labiatus because of its long lips. Illiger named it Prochilus hirsutus, the Greek genus name indicating long lips, while the specific name noted its long and coarse hair. Fischer called it Chondrorhynchus hirsutus, while Tiedemann named it Ursus longirostris.[4]
Subspecies and range
Name | Description | Distribution |
---|---|---|
Indian sloth bear (M. u. ursinus) (Shaw, 1791) |
This is the nominate subspecies and has a large skull with a condylobasal length of about 290 mm (11 in) in females and about 310 mm (12 in) in males.[5] | The sloth bear is the most widespread bear species in India, where it mostly occurs in areas with forest cover, low hills bordering the outer range of the Himalayas from Punjab to Arunachal Pradesh. It is absent in the high mountains of Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir, the northwestern deserts of Rajasthan, and a broad unforested swath in the south, where Mount Abu Wildlife Sanctuary is located.[6] Sloth bear occurs in protected areas such as Shoolpaneshwar, Ratanmahal, Jessore,[7] and Balaram Ambaji Sanctuaries.[8][9] |
Sri Lankan sloth bear (M. u. inornatus) Pucheran, 1855![]() |
The Sri Lankan sloth bear is smaller than the nominate subspecies, has a smaller skull with a condylobasal length of about 250 mm (9.8 in) in females and about 264 mm (10.4 in) in males.[5] It has much shorter body hair, and sometimes lacks the characteristic white chest mark.[11] | At the turn of the century, the Sri Lankan sloth bear occurred throughout Sri Lanka. But due to wide-scale conversion of upland forests into tea and coffee plantations, it is now restricted to the northern and eastern lowlands.[12] |
Evolution
Sloth bears may have reached their current form in the Early Pleistocene, the time when the bear family specialised and dispersed. A fragment of fossilised humerus from the Pleistocene, found in Andhra Pradesh's Kurnool Basin is identical to the humerus of a modern sloth bear. The fossilised skulls of a bear once named Melursus theobaldi found in the Shivaliks from the Early Pleistocene or Early Pliocene are thought by certain authors to represent an intermediate stage between sloth bears and ancestral brown bears. M. theobaldi itself had teeth intermediate in size between sloth bears and other bear species, though its palate was the same size as the former species, leading to the theory that it is the sloth bear's direct ancestor. Sloth bears probably arose during the Middle Pliocene and evolved in the Indian subcontinent. The sloth bear shows evidence of having undergone a convergent evolution similar to that of other ant-eating mammals.[11]
The sloth bear is one of eight extant species in the bear family Ursidae and of six extant species in the subfamily Ursinae.
A possible phylogeny based on complete mitochondrial DNA sequences from Yu et al. (2007).[13] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The polar bear and the brown bear form a close grouping, while the relationships of the other species are not very well resolved.[14] |
A more recent phylogeny based on the genetic study of Kumar et al. (2017).[15] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The study concludes that Ursine bears originated around 5 million years ago and show extensive hybridization of species in their lineage.[15] |
Text je dostupný za podmienok Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License 3.0 Unported; prípadne za ďalších podmienok. Podrobnejšie informácie nájdete na stránke Podmienky použitia.
Antropológia
Aplikované vedy
Bibliometria
Dejiny vedy
Encyklopédie
Filozofia vedy
Forenzné vedy
Humanitné vedy
Knižničná veda
Kryogenika
Kryptológia
Kulturológia
Literárna veda
Medzidisciplinárne oblasti
Metódy kvantitatívnej analýzy
Metavedy
Metodika
Text je dostupný za podmienok Creative
Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License 3.0 Unported; prípadne za ďalších
podmienok.
Podrobnejšie informácie nájdete na stránke Podmienky
použitia.
www.astronomia.sk | www.biologia.sk | www.botanika.sk | www.dejiny.sk | www.economy.sk | www.elektrotechnika.sk | www.estetika.sk | www.farmakologia.sk | www.filozofia.sk | Fyzika | www.futurologia.sk | www.genetika.sk | www.chemia.sk | www.lingvistika.sk | www.politologia.sk | www.psychologia.sk | www.sexuologia.sk | www.sociologia.sk | www.veda.sk I www.zoologia.sk