“Ancient Secrets Revealed: Ice Age Bears and Wolf-Like Creatures Uncovered in Mysterious Underwater Cave!”
Roberto Chavez-ArceA diver holding the skull of the short-faced bear, Arcotherium wingei. 2019.
Schubert said seven bones belonging to the short-faced bear and the bones of one — possibly two — wolf-like Protocyon have been successfully secured thus far. All recovered fossils have since been dated to the late Pleistocene, placing them back about 11,300 years.
For Schubert, the fact that these species have been found outside of South America isn’t even the most shocking aspect of this discovery, but rather it’s that there’s no better record of these species than this one to date.
“The whole previous record of this particular type of bear is just known from a few localities in South America, and those are fragmentary remains,” he explained. “So, we went from not having any of this type of bear outside of South America to now having the best record of this type of bear from the Yucatán of Mexico.”
Biology LettersThe recovered fossils of the short-faced bear Arctotherium wingei and the wolf-like Protocyon troglodytes.
There’s good reason why this expedition has resulted in such surprising, unexpected reactions from the scientific community.
The Great American Biotic Interchange, which connected North and South America, is believed to have occurred around 2.5-3 million years ago. This new tectonic reconfiguration saw wide swaths of animals cross over into new territories — namely, the North American short-faced bear and the wolf-like Protocyon.
The two species moved south and evolved into the new species discovered in Hoyo Negro. As such, researchers and paleontologists have been stunned to find these two ancient species outside of South America. This particular site, for clarity, is around 1,200 miles away from their known habitat.
