AnonymousLlama428

Using regression equations, Flower 2016 estimated a mean body mass of 39.85±1.64 kg for wolves in Britain at this time, including the Banwell wolves. This is the largest size that has ever been attained by Pleistocene wolves in the British Isles (perhaps not so impressive when you realize that it's similar to extant wolves in size but still). Their larger size is likely due in part to their ecological "liberation", since cave lions and (more importantly) hyenas were absent from the Isles at this time, so the only competition was the brown bear. It is likely that given the poor plant resources present at the time that both wolves and brown bears would have been forced into direct ecological competition over the limited prey species available. When the continental predators returned to Britain in MIS 4 and MIS 3, the size estimates for British wolves goes down again.[3] Dental analyses of the wolves suggests a highly hypercarnivorous diet.[4]

During the Pleistocene of Eurasia, an obscure, though very large, very robust and highly carnivorous supspecies/ecomorph of brown bear is know from steppe environments. This is know as the steppe brown bear (Ursus arctos priscus), where the common name was given by Marciszak 2017. From the remains which are usually fragmentary, we know that the steppe brown bear was huge; some specimens exceed the largest cave bears in size:sta.sh/0ye25wgaoa5 (though I'm unsure if it was larger on average). They seem also to have convergently evolved similar skeletal features to the cave bears, in terms of their robusticity, which has made their remains at times difficult to distinguish from those of cave bears in the past.[5]

Though its taxonomy is far from sorted, from the published isotopic evidence, we knew that cave hyenas occupied the central range of the prey spectrum, hunting mainly horse, bison and woolly rhinoceros. Both the solitary cave lion and the pack hunting megafaunal wolves show little dietary overlap, as they were unable to compete and were forced to consume prey that were less often hunted by the hyenas, e.g. reindeer, red deer, chamois until after the hyena's extirpation.[6]
The only predators known to overlap with hyenas in diet were leopards and brown bears. Leopards, we know, hid their kills in small caves, and thereby avoided direct antagonism with hyenas. However we still have direct evidence of hyenas consuming their remains, and the hyenas appear to have had the competitive edge by far. However, brown bears are not known to have stashed kills in caves like leopards, in fact their remains are quite rare in caves. Bocherens 2011 points out the larger size of the brown bears in the Pleistocene may have allowed them to compete for prey/carcasses with what was otherwise the dominant predator of the mammoth steppe.[7] The reason for their carnivory given by Bocherens was competition with the larger cave bears for plant resources, which does have evidentiary basis[6], but seems to be only half the story. In the 2017 International Cave Bear Symposium, Marciszak published some new abstracts which brought new light onto the steppe brown bear, where he states that the relative abundance of carcasses on the mammoth steppe created a niche for a kleptoparasite and all-round opportunistic bear. The role of the steppe brown bear in Eurasian steppe ecosystems seems to be similar to that of Arctodus in Beringia, where it was very carnivorous and likely kleptoparasitic, bullying other predators off of their kills. It is possible that they did not hibernate due to their carnivorous diet, and they were probably the largest predator on the steppe. However they don't seem to have been common, and likely had low population densities compared to other predators. When the mammoth steppe ecosystem collapsed, the large brown bear ecomorph seems to have gone with it, being replaced by smaller brown bears towards the end of glacial era.[8]

While the taxonomic status of the British MIS 5a brown bears is not deeply studied, given that the apparent predecessor of the steppe brown bear, the Taubach brown bear (Ursus arctos taubachensis) is recorded in the late Middle Pleistocene of Britain and some brown bear remains from the late Pleistocene (though of unknown exact age) may also belong to the later steppe brown bear, I decided to identify the British MIS 5a bears as steppe brown bears. They were certainly huge too: sta.sh/01cr5q3xrdvg (sorry for the shit quality and my thumb, long story).

Analyses of the teeth of the Banwell brown bears shows a similar pattern of wear to polar bears, and based on comparisons to some extant brown bears, there seems to be very little contribution of seeds to their diets, instead being highly carnivorous. As well as hunting, flesh may also have been scavenged from (frozen) carcasses, as seen in modern polar bear utilisation of marine mammals. At this time the steppe brown bear, if we can attribute them to this variety, was the top predator of Britain.[9]

Apparently the Banwell bone cave locality/ area was inhabited during spring and winter or somecraplikethat. [10]

[1] drive.google.com/file/d/0Bx1ZE… (Go to section 10.2.2 on pg 167)

[2] onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/ab…

[3] www.academia.edu/29999842/New_…

[4] www.sciencedirect.com/science/…

[5] www.researchgate.net/publicati…

[6] www.researchgate.net/publicati…

[7] www.sciencedirect.com/science/…

[8] www.ssj.sk/user_files/Aragonit…

[9] core.ac.uk/download/pdf/157860…

[10] www.era.lib.ed.ac.uk/bitstream…

For the coloration of the wolves, I was inspired by the arctic wolves and those of Mongolia, since those environments seem closest to this setting.

in regards to the pale coloration, it seems that there are strong selective pressures for it in tundra environments: repository.si.edu/bitstream/ha…

Though in mainland wolves the pale coat is also present, so I guess a mix of both colored and pale wolves in a pack isn't impossible.

As for the steppe brown bear - I did some research into grizzly coloration, and while a wide variety of pelts can be found in a single environment/ecoregion, it seems that for grizzlies in tundra environments, the paler, blonder coats are more prevalent, perhaps as an adaptive trait, which I decided to give to the steppe brown bear here:

Though I'm sure darker individuals would also exist, as they do in grizzlies.

I kinda finished this piece off in a hurry, so it probably has its flaws, and the water is shit. The clouds were made using various brushes downloaded from who-knows-what-users that I forgot.

But yeah I wanted to get this finished before the 16th.

Ugh, I did not produce as much art as I'd like to have done this summer, it just takes so long to make. -_-