The Tibetan brown bear or pike-eater , ( lat. Ursus arctos pruinosus ) [2] is a subspecies of the brown bear, Ursus arctos , living in the east of the Tibetan plateau .
| Tibetan Brown Bear |
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| Scientific classification |
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| No rank : | Bilateral symmetric |
| Nadotryad : | Laurasiotherium |
| Subtype : | Tibetan Brown Bear |
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| International Scientific Name |
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Ursus arctos pruinosus Blyth , 1854 |
| Synonyms |
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- U. a. lagomyiarius Przewalski, 1883 [1]
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One of the rarest subspecies of the brown bear in the world, is very rare in the wild. Known in Europe only for a small number of samples of hides and bones. It was first described in 1854.
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This is how the famous Russian traveler Nikolai Mikhailovich Przhevalsky describes this bear:
Largest newly discovered bear - from our common (Ursus arctos); differs from it mainly in the quality of fur and its inflorescence. The male posterior half of the body is dark-brown, with a roast color bloom, more sharp on the sides. The front groins are reddish, withers almost black. The chest is reddish-white, from her through the shoulders to the neck, half wrapping from the front of the withers, a wide white stripe passes. The head is light red, the muzzle is even lighter, the chin is brown, the ears are dark brown. The upper part and sides of the neck are almost the same color with the sides of the body, the throat is the same color with the chest. Legs are almost black, claws are white. The color of the bear is much lighter, since the ends of the hair on its body have longer, almost white, ends. The coat of the male, and even more of the female, is soft and thick, up to 4 inches long; the fur is generally excellent. The total length of the harvested male is 6 feet 5 inches, the height of the nape is 3 feet 7 inches; A female bear is 5 feet 6 inches long and almost 3 feet high [3] .
The Tibetan brown bear is sometimes regarded as belonging to the same subspecies as the Gobi brown bear ( Ursus arctos gobiensis ). This is based on a certain morphological similarity and the belief that a bear living in the Gobi Desert is a relict pike-eater. However, the Soviet theriologists V.Ye. Sokolov and V.N. Orlov emphasized that, due to the peculiarities of the skull structure, the Gobi bears have little resemblance to the Tibetan ones and are more similar to the Tien Shan form of Ursus arctos isabellinus [4] . Later, the same authors described the gobi bear as a special subspecies.
It is possible that some individuals may be observed high in the mountains, moving through them in search of food or a partner for breeding. But there is too little data on the subspecies to confirm this assumption.
These animals feed mainly on herbs as well as pikas .
The exact protection status of the Tibetan brown bear is unknown due to lack of information. However, in the US, trade in members of this subspecies and in parts of their body is restricted to the Endangered Species Act of 1973. It is also listed in Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) as a protected subspecies. These bears can be exterminated for the sake of bile , used in traditional Chinese medicine , and they are also threatened with habitat destruction.
The Tibetan brown bear is remarkable in that it is one of the possible types for the yeti legend. In 1960, an expedition to search for evidence of the existence of a yeti, led by Sir Edmund Hillary , returned with two shreds of fur, which the locals called "yeti fur." Subsequently, scientists have identified them as the fur of the Tibetan brown bear [5] [6] .
