Talk:Atlas bear

Is the Atlas Bear a true species? I think that it was only a North-African subspecies of Brown Bear, and its scientific name may be Ursus arctos crowtheri.--Menah the Great 00:34, 29 November 2005 (UTC)Reply

I also heard it, and even rumours that this was not [a] valid race at all. Jurek

It was a separate breeding population, with no contact with other groups (except for human interference). There are two tendencies in biological classification: 'Lumpers', which tend to decrease the number of species and 'Splitters', which tend to increase the number of species. These trends have come and gone over the years and for much of the 19th Century the Splitters were predominate. Bears in particular suffered from this, with sometimes it seems that every new specimen was considered a new species (dinosaurs and other fossils were another group that suffered this; so did wolves). I've got one book that indicates that Modern thought is that the Atlas bear was not a separate species, but a subspecies of European Brown Bear; but species have been established with far less reasons. I do not know if there are sufficient remains left to do a DNA analysis to settle this. CFLeon 01:09, 4 August 2006 (UTC)Reply

Most reliable sources that I have seen suggest that the Atlas Bear was a subspecies of the Brown Bear. However many subspecies have their own articles (Barbary stag, Siberian Tiger, Asiatic Lion, etc). I suppose if the subspecies is distinct enough or notable enough, it warrants its own page. Anyone got any sources? Elostirion (talk) 04:37, 13 February 2009 (UTC)Reply

On another note I have changed "Tetuan Mountains" to "Rif Mountains", as the Tetuan Mountains do not exist. Tetouan is a city in the Rif range. Elostirion (talk) 04:41, 13 February 2009 (UTC)Reply

What does this even *mean*? Was it crappy at climbing trees. Was it a horror up trees and leap out and whack dudes. Was it injurious to trees? This is really poor writing! 59.167.111.154 (talk) 17:56, 31 January 2015 (UTC)Reply