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Published December 31, 2005 | Version v1
Taxonomic treatment Open

Ursus maritimus Phipps 1774

Description

Ursus maritimus Phipps 1774

Ursus maritimus Phipps 1774, Voyage Towards North Pole: 185.

Type Locality: "on the main land of Spitsbergen" [Norway].

Vernacular Names: Polar Bear.

Synonyms: Ursus eogroenlandicus (Knottnerus-Meyer 1908); Ursus groenlandicus (Birula 1932); Ursus jenaensis (Knottnerus-Mayer 1908); Ursus labradorensis (Knottnerus-Meyer 1908); Ursus marinus Pallas 1776; Ursus polaris Shaw 1792.

Distribution: Canada, Greenland, USA (Alaska), Russia. Circumpolar in the Arctic, S limits determined by ice pack.

Conservation: CITES – Appendix II; IUCN – Lower Risk (cd).

Discussion: Revised by Wilson (1976). Reviewed by DeMaster and Stirling (1981). Placed in subgenus Thalarctos by Gromov and Baranova (1981). U. maritimus is considered the sister species to arctos (Goldman et al., 1989; Shields and Kocher, 1991). Synonyms allocated according to Ellerman and Morrison-Scott (1951) and Hall (1981).

Notes

Published as part of Wilson, Don E. & Reeder, DeeAnn, 2005, Order Carnivora, pp. 532-628 in Mammal Species of the World: a Taxonomic and Geographic Reference (3 rd Edition), Volume 1, Baltimore :The Johns Hopkins University Press on page 589, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.7316519

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Linked records

Additional details

Biodiversity

Family
Ursidae
Genus
Ursus
Kingdom
Animalia
Order
Carnivora
Phylum
Chordata
Scientific name authorship
Phipps
Species
maritimus
Taxon rank
species
Taxonomic concept label
Ursus maritimus Phipps, 1774 sec. Wilson & Reeder, 2005

References

  • Wilson, D. E. 1976. Cranial variation in polar bears. Pp. 447 - 453, in Bears- - their biology and management (M. R. Pelton, J. W. Lentfer, and G. E. Folk, eds.). International Union for the Conservation of Nature, n. s., 40: 1 - 467
  • DeMaster, D. P., and I. Stirling. 1981. Ursus maritimus. Mammalian Species, 145: 1 - 7.
  • Gromov, I. M., and G. I. Baranova (eds.). 1981. Katalog mlekopitayushchikh SSSR [Catalog of mammals of the USSR]. Nauka, Leningrad, 456 pp. (in Russian).
  • Goldman, D. P., R. Giri, and S. J. O'Brien. 1989. Molecular genetic-distance estimates among the Ursidae as indicated by one- and two-dimensional protein electrophoresis. Evolution, 43 (2): 282 - 295.
  • Shields, G. F., and T. D. Kocher. 1991. Phylogenetic relationships of North American ursids based on analysis of mitochrondrial DNA. Evolution, 45 (1): 218 - 221.
  • Ellerman, J. R., and T. C. S. Morrison-Scott. 1951. Checklist of Palaearctic and Indian mammals 1758 to 1946. Trustees of the British Museum (Natural History), London, 810 pp.
  • Hall, E. R. 1981. The mammals of North America. Second ed. John Wiley and Sons, New York, 1: 1 - 600 + 90, 2: 601 - 1181 + 90.