Bite force of the extinct Pleistocene Cave bear Ursus spelaeus Rosenmüller from Europe

In this paper, I have made a theoretical calculation of the Cave bearʹs bite force (BF) following the “dry skull method” and I present for the first time BF data that can be of interest to elucidate the mechanisms underlying the dietary choice of the Cave bears. In the skulls studied, males show higher BF than females in absolute terms, but more similar with regard to their body mass, which partly compensates for the smaller size of the females. The whole sample studied shows lower BF in the upper carnassial than those of large cats, similar to the one calculated for the Giant panda and higher than that of Polar bear.