The mountain ranges of southern California, north through the Central Valley to southern OregonДЄble to live in varied climates: found in temperate rain forest in the north and chaparral shrubland in the south. May very rarely sport a white blaze on the chest. A large-bodied subspecies almost all specimens have black fur. Thought to be increasing in some regions.Д¬ommon to Eastern Canada and the eastern U.S. The Pacific Northwest coast from central British Columbia through northern California and inland to the tip of northern Idaho and British ColumbiaД¬olorado, New Mexico, western Texas and the eastern half of Arizona into northern Mexico and southeastern UtahД®astern Montana to the Atlantic coast, from Alaska south and east through Canada to Maine and south to Texas. Listed alphabetically according to subspecific name: American black bear subspecies Sixteen subspecies are traditionally recognized however, a recent genetic study does not support designating some of these, such as the Florida black bear, as distinct subspecies. DNA testing was unable to determine whether it was a large American black bear or a grizzly bear. ДЄ bear shot in autumn 1986 in Michigan was thought by some to be an American black bear/grizzly bear hybrid, due to its unusually large size and its proportionately larger brain case and skull. In the reports published since this date three species have produced young (hybrids in one case),В . In the nine-year Report it is stated that the bears had been seen in the zoological gardens to couple freely, but previously to 1848 most had rarely conceived. In The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Charles Darwin noted: In 1859, an American black bear and a Eurasian brown bear were bred together in the London Zoological Gardens, but the three cubs that were born died before they reached maturity. According to Jack Hanna's Monkeys on the Interstate, a bear captured in Sanford, Florida was thought to have been the offspring of an escaped female Asian black bear and a male American black bear. Hybrids ДЄ possible American black bear- grizzly bear hybrid in the Yukon Territory, CanadaДЄmerican black bears are reproductively compatible with several other bear species and occasionally produce hybrid offspring. After these prehistoric ursids became extinct during the last glacial period 10,000В years ago, American black bears were probably the only bear present in much of North America until the migration of brown bears to the rest of the continent. However, both Arctodus and Tremarctos had survived several other, previous ice ages. The American black bear's generalist behavior allowed it to exploit a wider variety of foods and has been given as a reason why, of these three genera, it alone survived climate and vegetative changes through the last Ice Age while the other, more specialized North American predators became extinct. The giant and lesser short-faced bears are thought to have been heavily carnivorous and the Florida spectacled bear more herbivorous, while the American black bears remained arboreal omnivores, like their Asian ancestors. These tremarctine bears evolved from bears that had emigrated from Asia to the Americas 7вЂ“8 mya. pristinus, respectively) and the Florida spectacled bear ( Tremarctos floridanus). The American black bear lived during the same period as the giant and lesser short-faced bears ( Arctodus simus and A. From the Holocene to the present, American black bears seem to have shrunk in size, but this has been disputed because of problems with dating these fossil specimens.

The earliest American black bear fossils, which were located in Port Kennedy, Pennsylvania, greatly resemble the Asian species, though later specimens grew to sizes comparable to grizzly bears. The American black bear then split from the Asian black bear 4.08 mya. The ancestors of American black bears and Asian black bears diverged from sun bears 4.58 mya. vitabilis an 'apparent precursor to modern black bears', it has also been placed within U. Although Wolverton and Lyman still consider U. abstrusus may be the direct ancestor of the American black bear, which evolved in North America.

ДЄ small primitive bear called Ursus abstrusus is the oldest known North American fossil member of the genus Ursus, dated to 4.95 mya. According to recent studies, the sun bear is also a relatively recent split from this lineage. American and Asian black bears are considered sister taxa and are more closely related to each other than to the other modern species of bears. American black bear head, Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical GardenДespite living in North America, American black bears are not closely related to brown bears and polar bears genetic studies reveal that they split from a common ancestor 5.05 million years ago (mya).

Black forest lodge big bear