Gobi bear


The Gobi bear, is a subspecies of the brown bear that is found in the Gobi Desert of Mongolia. It is listed as critically endangered by the Mongolian Redbook of Endangered Species and by the Zoological Society of London. The population included only around 30 adults in 2009, and is separated by enough distance from other brown bear populations to achieve reproductive isolation.

Behaviour and ecology

Gobi bears mainly eat roots, berries, and other plants, sometimes rodents; there is no evidence that they prey on large mammals. Small compared to other brown bear subspecies, adult males weigh about and females about.

Genetic diversity

Gobi bears have very little genetic diversity, among the lowest ever observed in any subspecies of brown bear. Levels of genetic diversity similar to the Gobi bears have been reported only in a small population of brown bears in the Pyrenees Mountains on the border of Spain and France.

Research

Based on morphology, the Gobi brown bear has sometimes historically been classified as being of the same subspecies as the Tibetan blue bear. However, recent phylogenetic analysis has shown the Gobi bear to instead represent a relict population of the Himalayan brown bear. There are only 20 Gobi bears left in the wild.