🐻
Brown bear
Ursus arctos
Carnivores · Least concern
vs
🦁
Lion
Panthera leo
Carnivores · Vulnerable
One clip names both of them
26 million views between them.
Brown bear outweighs Lion 1.6× — 241 kg against 149 kg. Both figures are averages across males and females.
To scale
Grid at 50 cm
50 cm
1 m
1.5 m
2 m
Silhouettes: PhyloPic — Lukasiniho (CC BY-NC-SA); others CC0.
Brown bear
1.20 m
at the shoulder
Human
1.70 m
full standing height
for scale
Lion
1.15 m
at the shoulder
Tale of the tape
Body mass
241 kg
🐻 Brown bear · COMBINE
149 kg
🦁 Lion · COMBINE
Shoulder height
1.2 m
🐻 Brown bear
1.15 m
🦁 Lion
Body length
2.29 m
🐻 Brown bear · COMBINE
2.17 m
🦁 Lion · COMBINE
Top speed
47 km/h
🐻 Brown bear
55 km/h
🦁 Lion
Bite force
751 N
🐻 Brown bear
1,768 N
🦁 Lion
Maximum lifespan
50 yr
🐻 Brown bear · COMBINE
30 yr
🦁 Lion · COMBINE
Bars are sized against the larger of the two figures. Bite force figures come from individual studies and vary a lot between sources.
Animals caught on camera
Real footage of the animals on this site — hunting, fighting, and getting on with it.
Shared ancestry
The closest group they share is Carnivora (order), home to 728 species.
They last shared an ancestor about 39 million years ago.
Estimates range from 32 to 45 million years; the figure above is the middle estimate.
About this estimate
Dates from Upham, Esselstyn & Jetz 2019, PLoS Biology 17:e3000494 (CC0).