Photos provide information on age, but not kinship, of Andean bear.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Van Horn RC
PROVIDER: S-EPMC4512767 | biostudies-literature | 2015
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Publications
Photos provide information on age, but not kinship, of Andean bear.
Van Horn Russell C RC Zug Becky B Appleton Robyn D RD Velez-Liendo Ximena X Paisley Susanna S LaCombe Corrin C
PeerJ 20150716
Using photos of captive Andean bears of known age and pedigree, and photos of wild Andean bear cubs <6 months old, we evaluated the degree to which visual information may be used to estimate bears' ages and assess their kinship. We demonstrate that the ages of Andean bear cubs ≤6 months old may be estimated from their size relative to their mothers with an average error of <0.01 ± 13.2 days (SD; n = 14), and that ages of adults ≥10 years old may be estimated from the proportion of their nose tha ...[more]
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