Article · Wikipedia archive · Last revised May 26, 2026

Ursinae

Ursinae is a subfamily of Ursidae (bears) named by Swainson (1835). It was assigned to Ursidae by Bjork (1970), Hunt (1998), and Jin et al. (2007).

Last revised
May 26, 2026
Read time
≈ 2 min
Length
386 w
Citations
3
Source
Ursinae
Temporal range:
A Eurasian brown bear (Ursus arctos arctos)
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Infraclass: Placentalia
Order: Carnivora
Family: Ursidae
Subfamily: Ursinae
Fischer de Waldheim, 1817
Genera

See text

Ursinae is a subfamily of Ursidae (bears) named by Swainson (1835). It was assigned to Ursidae by Bjork (1970), Hunt (1998), and Jin et al. (2007).123

Classification

The genera Melursus and Helarctos are sometimes also included in Ursus. The Asiatic black bear and the polar bear used to be placed in their own genera, Selenarctos and Thalarctos; these are now placed at subgenus rank.

A number of hybrids have been bred between American black, brown, and polar bears (see Ursid hybrids).

References

References

  1. Bjork, Philip R. (1970). "The Carnivora of the Hagerman Local Fauna (Late Pliocene) of Southwestern Idaho". Transactions of the American Philosophical Society. 60 (7). American Philosophical Society: 3–54. doi:10.2307/1006119. JSTOR 1006119.
  2. Hunt, R. M. (1998). "Ursidae". In Jacobs, Louis; Janis, Christine M.; Scott, Kathleen L. (eds.). Evolution of Tertiary Mammals of North America: Volume 1, Terrestrial Carnivores, Ungulates, and Ungulate like Mammals. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. pp. 174–195. ISBN 0-521-35519-2.
  3. Jin, C; Ciochon, RL; Dong, W; Hunt Jr, RM; Liu, J; Jaeger, M; Zhu, Q (2007). "The first skull of the earliest giant panda". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 104 (26): 10932–7. Bibcode:2007PNAS..10410932J. doi:10.1073/pnas.0704198104. PMC 1904166. PMID 17578912.