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Plionarctos Temporal range: Late Miocene–Late Pliocene PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Carnivora
Family:	Ursidae
Subfamily:	Tremarctinae
Genus:	†Plionarctos Frick, 1926
Type species
†Plionarctos edensis Frick, 1926
Species
†P. harroldorum Tedford & Martin, 2001 †P. edensis Frick, 1926

Plionarctos is an extinct genus of bear endemic to North America from the Miocene to the Pliocene, ~10.3—3.3 Mya, existing for about 7 million years.

Indarctos (10.7—9.2 Mya) preceded Plionarctos by only a few thousand years and was a contemporary of that bear and shared its habitat. Plionarctos preceded and was also contemporary with Tremarctos floridanus (4.9 million — 11,000 years ago) and shared its habitat. Plionarctos is the oldest known genus within the subfamily of the short-faced bears (Tremarctinae), and is believed to be ancestral to the clade.

Fossil distribution

Sites and specimen ages:

• Ile de Ratonneau Breccia, Provence, France about ~800,000—100,000 years ago
• Fort Green Mine, Polk County, Florida paleontological sites about 10.3—4.9 Mya
• Taunton site, Adams County, Washington (P. harroldorum) about 4.9—1.8 Mya (Plionarctos harroldorum)
• Pipe Creek Sinkhole, Grant County, Indiana (P. edensis) about 10.3—1.8 Mya
• Palmetto Mine, Polk County, Florida 7.9—7.8 Mya
• Gray Fossil Site, Washington County, Tennessee about 7.0-4.5 Mya

References

1. Frick, Childs (1926). "The Hemicyoninæ and an American Tertiary Bear". Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History. 56 (1): 111–119. hdl:2246/1321.
2. ^ Tedford, Richard H.; Martin, James (2001). "Plionarctos, a tremarctine bear (Ursidae: Carnivora) from western North America". Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. 21 (2): 311–321. doi:10.1671/0272-4634(2001)021[0311:PATBUC]2.0.CO;2. JSTOR 20061955. S2CID 130061851.

• Pliocene bears
• Miocene bears
• Pleistocene bears
• Pleistocene genus extinctions
• Pliocene mammals of North America
• Pliocene mammals of Europe
• Prehistoric carnivoran genera
• Tremarctinae