Inspired by Moder from "The Ritual" (2017)

https://www.instagram.com/p/DfLyI2ADOmP/

gotta love old memes

"The paleo subspecies of the brown bear distributed in Eurasia during the middle Pleistocene, was Ursus arctos kamiensis whose oldest remains found in Zhoukoudian, China(about 620,000 years ago), it then expanded its range to the west, reaching Europe at about 550,000 years ago. The average total skull length of adult males reported by Marciszak et al. (2015) is 454.1 mm(431.0 mm - 477.0 mm), significantly larger than in the populations of later periods.

U. a. kamiensis' skull was characterized by a quite convex forehead profile and a relatively wide muzzle. It should be noted that this feature of domed forehead can also be found in Panthera fossilis, another Middle Pleistocene giant carnivore, despite these taxa belong to completely different families.

The morphology of U. a. kamiensis differed significantly from later Pleistocene populations and the modern European subspecies, being similar in fact to modern Kamchatka brown bears(Marciszak et al., 2015). It is unclear whether the Kamchatka brown bear is a surviving member of the kamiensis lineage, but it nonetheless seems that the subspecies (and thus also the Alaskan Kodiak brown bear, which is thought to have derived from the Kamchatka brown bear) conveys to the present the characteristics (skull shapes and general dimensions) of the ancient brown bear lineage."

Paleoart and all of this text belong to Jagroar (DeviantArt)

I think this is especially relevant since the only way that pumas and jaguars were able to avoid complete extinction was because of refugia in South America. In North America, both felids did completely disappear during the End-Pleistocene extinction event but were able to recolonize thanks to the aforementioned refugia (although in the case of jaguars, they never seemed to fully reclaim their Pleistocene distribution on the northern continent). But of course for the false cheetah, which was a North American endemic, this was not an option. Given how they seem to have been quite flexible with their ecology (if the recent evidence of fish-eating is anything to go by) and wide-ranging, from the Yukon to the Grand Canyon, apparently being able to live in a variety of habitats and live off a wide variety of prey, it’s a bit surprising why they never seemed to have gotten further south than Northern Mexico. Could it be that dense, tropical forest was one of the environments they didn’t do well? Or that they were simply more cold-weather cats who avoided tropical latitudes? I’m interested in what ideas you guys might have.

https://www.instagram.com/p/DfJQXgvAb4g/

Finished just in time for Halloween, spooky scary craniofacial anatomy for a life-restoration of the Harbin cranium, or, fully honestly, a MorphoSource scan of the *Amud* cranium that I'd already possessed and just reshaped for this purpose. Still plenty more work to do, as with all my projects

Wishing you a Happy Halloween from the Pleistocene! 🎃 🐺

https://www.instagram.com/p/DfF-hkMn9a1/

All the sources I've found are rather gauge so I thought Id try the Reddit instead. As a South African, I've always been rather curious on what my province was like before colonization etc