Arctodus simus ("snub-faced bear tooth") is a genus of "short faced bear", however this is an optical illusion due to how tall the skull is. This snout is about the same size as any other bear. Despite the type species being A. pristinus, A. simus is much more complete and well known. While there are two potentially valid subspecies of A. simus due to the huge range of this animal, this Arctodus is not meant to represent either of them. Arctodus lived about 1.8 million years ago to 12,800 years ago, with a majority of its life spent in the Pleistocene. A. pristinus likely evolved into A. simus, however the two may have had temporal overlap during the middle Pleistocene before A. pristinus died out. This story takes place ~120,000 years ago. This is a female Arctodus looking for food after she's lost direction. She left her mother a while ago, however she's still learning how to live on her own. This is only a small dry spell on the American Great Plains, but it's having some big implications for the bears. She overslept and her neighboring bison herd left. Luckily, the smell still remains and she is able to just barely track them. all sounds are sourced from https://www.nps.gov/subjects/sound/index.htm consists of crickets, grasshoppers, bison, ospreys, and robins parallax code by @ReinGear
