Auvergne bear

The Auvergne bear, Ursus minimus, was an extinct bear that lived in Europe during the Pliocene and Pleistocene, between about 5.3 and 1.8 million years ago, a span of roughly three and a half million years. It appears to have given rise to the Etruscan bear, Ursus etruscus. Its range covered continental Europe, reaching east to the Black Sea in Russia and south to Italy, and its fossils are known from France, Slovakia, Hungary, Ukraine, Italy, Bulgaria, Georgia and Russia. Its skeleton closely resembled that of the larger living Asian black bear, and apart from the age of the bones its remains are often hard to tell apart from that species. Kossiakino in Russia, Osztramos in Hungary, Seneze in France and Meleto in Italy are among its fossil sites.