Arctodus — known as the short-faced bear or bulldog bear — is an extinct genus of bear

Bear

Bears are mammals of the family Ursidae. Bears are classified as caniforms, or doglike carnivorans, with the pinnipeds being their closest living relatives. Although there are only eight living species of bear, they are widespread, appearing in a wide variety of habitats throughout the Northern...

 endemic to North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

 during the Pleistocene

Pleistocene

The Pleistocene is the epoch from 2,588,000 to 11,700 years BP that spans the world's recent period of repeated glaciations. The name pleistocene is derived from the Greek and ....

 ~3.0 Ma.—11,000 years ago, existing for approximately three million years. Arctodus simus may have once been Earth's largest mammalian, terrestrial carnivore. It was the most common of early North American bears, being most abundant in California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

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The long-faced bears belonged to a group of bears known as the tremarctine

Tremarctinae

Tremarctinae is a term for the subfamily of Ursidae containing one living representative, the Spectacled Bear of South America, and several extinct species from four genera: the Florida spectacled bear , the North American short-faced bears of genera Plionarctos and Arctodus Tremarctinae is a...

 bears or running bears, which are endemic to North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

 and Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

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