T. floridanus is presumed to closely resemble its modern relative that shares the same genus, the spectacled bear (Tremarctos ornatus) found in the Andes Mountains of South America.

Despite one such common name, T. floridanus is not considered a close relative of the cave bear, Ursus spelaeus, which belonged to a different genus and subfamily.

Like modern spectacled bears, T. floridanus was omnivorous and likely subsisted chiefly on plant material with a majority of animal matter consumed being carrion.

T. floridanus was widely distributed south of the continental ice sheet from Florida along the Gulf Coast through Texas to Nuevo León and north to South Carolina and Tennessee during the Rancholabrean epoch (250,000–11,000 years ago).

[7][8] While once thought to have had a possible continuation into the Greenlandian stage of the Holocene from presumed 8,000 years old material from the Devil's Den Cave,[9] subsequent research indicates the fossils present were from the Rancholabrean epoch instead.