Taxonomy of black bears (Ursus spp) according to Merriam

    C. Hart Merriam was a prominent mammalogist of the late 19th and early 20th century. His taxonomy of North American black bears (Ursus spp) shows the work of an extreme "splitter": essentially every specimen he deemed to be morphologically distinct and therefore to constitute a new species. Most modern workers recognize a single species, Ursus americanus.