Kiwi

Summarize the points made in the lecture, being sure to explain how they
respond to the specific points made in the reading passage.

Over the past few years, fragmentary remains of an extinct member of the bear
family called the giant short-faced bear have been discovered at sites across North
America. Because the remains of this creature are incomplete, there has been
extensive argument over the nature of this bear's lifestyle, and particularly over its
diet. While some researchers have suggested that the short-faced bear was an
omnivore, like modern black and brown bears, there is substantial evidence that
the giant short-faced bear was probably a carnivore that almost exclusively ate
meat.

First, it is the animal's bones that give us the clearest proof of the short-faced
bear's carnivorous nature. The most recent bone remains have been dated to
13,000 years ago, and testing of those bones has shown that they contain a very
high ratio of nitrogen-15 to nitrogen-14. This ratio of isotopes is a chemical
signature which indicates that the animal those bones belonged to was a
carnivore.

Second, the sheer size of the bear is a clue to its diet. The short-faced bear would
have stood over eleven feet tall on its hind legs and was one of the largest bear
species of all time. The largest bear species today is the polar bear, a species which
is almost exclusively carnivorous. Given that today's largest bear is a carnivore, it is
likely that the largest bear of the recent ice age shared similar dietary preferences.

Third, the legs of the short-faced bear were ideally suited to running down fleeing
prey animals. The short-faced bear had the longest legs of any bear species and
claws that aligned forward, rather than in the spread out formation we see on
bears today. The structure of its bones and claws would have enabled it to
maintain a carnivorous diet by allowing it to run down and catch a wide variety of
fast-moving ice-age prey species including elk, caribou, and horses.