A Kamchatka Brown Bear near Dvuhyurtochnoe taken on July 23rd, 2015.

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Photo: Robert F. Tobler · CC BY-SA 4.0

SpeciesCarnivoraUrsidae

Carnivores

🐻Brown bear

Ursus arctos Linnaeus, 1758

Der Braunbär (Ursus arctos) gehört zu den Säugetieren aus der Familie der Bären (Ursidae). In Eurasien und Nordamerika kommt er in mehreren Unterarten vor, darunter Europäischer Braunbär (U. a. arctos), Grizzlybär (U. a. horribilis) und Kodiakbär (U. a. middendorffi). Als eines der größten an Land lebenden Raubtiere der Erde spielt er in zahlreichen Mythen und Sagen eine wichtige Rolle. Er wurde als Nahrungskonkurrent und Gefährder des Menschen vielerorts dezimiert oder ausgerottet. So gibt es in West- und Mitteleuropa nur noch Reliktpopulationen. Innerhalb des deutschen Sprachraums lebt nur in Österreich dauerhaft eine kleine Gruppe. In den Alpen wandern einzelne Tiere umher.

Text: Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Videos

1,183

Photos

Measurements

vs you

≈ 3.9× your weight

Also called

Grizzly Bear

Conservation status

LCLeast concern

IUCN Red List assessment, 2017.

Population trendStable

Key measurements

Body mass: 241 kg
Body length: 2.29 m
Shoulder height: 1.2 m
Top speed: 47 km/h
Bite force: 751 N
Maximum lifespan: 50 years

All measurements ↓

Facts and figures

Everything we know about the Brown bear

Typical adult figures. Where a value is an estimate rather than a measurement, it says so.

Body mass

241 kg

COMBINE

Other figures ↓

Source: COMBINE · v1 (Soria et al. 2021) · CC BY 4.0

Figures vary

278 kgAnAgeAnAge build 15, 2023-07-03 (HAGR)data quality: acceptable

Body length

2.29 m

COMBINE

Details ↓

Source: COMBINE · v1 (Soria et al. 2021) · CC BY 4.0

Shoulder height

1.2 m0.9–1.5 m · typical rangeat the shoulder (quadruped)

Details ↓

"They are 90 to 150 cm tall at the shoulder and can tower at an intimidating height of 8 feet when standing upright on their hind legs." Recorded value is quadruped shoulder height (midpoint of 90-150 cm); the 8-ft figure is an upright hind-leg height stated separately and not recorded here.

Source: Animal Diversity Web (Univ. Michigan), Ursus arctos account, https://animaldiversity.org/accounts/Ursus_arctos/ · see citation

Top speed

47 km/h

Details ↓

Sprint over a short distance, not a sustained pace. Compilations give 46.66 and 47.97 km/h.

Source: Bejan & Marden 2006, J Exp Biol 209:238 and Christiansen 2002, Zool J Linn Soc 136:685; compiled in Hirt et al. 2017, Nat Ecol Evol 1:1116, Supplementary Data · see citation

Bite force

751 N

Details ↓

Canine bite modelled by the dry-skull method (Thomason 1991) from a prepared skull; static bite at the canines, gape not stated. Not a live measurement. The skull's estimated body mass was 128.8 kg. Estimates span 2.2x. A value of 1410 N is attributed to Christiansen & Wroe 2007, Ecology 88:347 -- that paper is paywalled and the figure could not be verified against its own table. Rozycka et al. 2024 give 1627 N. Do NOT use the 1681 N brown bear figure in Slater et al. 2010: that skull was rescaled to polar-bear size and driven by polar-bear muscle forces.

Source: Wroe, McHenry & Thomason 2005, Proc R Soc B 272:619, Table 1 · see citation

Bite force for its size

Details ↓

Bite force normalised for body mass: the residual of canine bite force regressed on body mass, average across the sample set to 100. Above 100 means the animal bites harder than its size predicts. Do not cross-check against Wikipedia's BFQ table, which silently mixes this paper with Christiansen & Wroe 2007 and cites a popular-science book.

Source: Wroe, McHenry & Thomason 2005, Proc R Soc B 272:619, Table 1 · see citation

Brain mass

359 g

COMBINE

Details ↓

Source: COMBINE · v1 (Soria et al. 2021) · CC BY 4.0

Maximum lifespan

50 years

COMBINE

Other figures ↓

Source: COMBINE · v1 (Soria et al. 2021) · CC BY 4.0