🐻
Brown bear
Ursus arctos
Carnivores · Least concern
vs
🐻❄️
Polar bear
Ursus maritimus
Carnivores · Vulnerable
4 clips name both of them
4.9 million views between them.
Polar bear outweighs Brown bear 1.5× — 372 kg against 241 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 (CC0).
Brown bear
1.20 m
at the shoulder
Human
1.70 m
full standing height
for scale
Polar bear
1.45 m
at the shoulder
Tale of the tape
Body mass
241 kg
🐻 Brown bear · COMBINE
372 kg
🐻❄️ Polar bear · COMBINE
Shoulder height
1.2 m
🐻 Brown bear
1.45 m
🐻❄️ Polar bear
Body length
2.29 m
🐻 Brown bear · COMBINE
2.25 m
🐻❄️ Polar bear · COMBINE
Top speed
47 km/h
🐻 Brown bear
39 km/h
🐻❄️ Polar bear
Bite force
751 N
🐻 Brown bear
2,121 N
🐻❄️ Polar bear
Maximum lifespan
50 yr
🐻 Brown bear · COMBINE
45 yr
🐻❄️ Polar bear · 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 Ursidae (family), home to 32 species.
They last shared an ancestor about 0.6 million years ago.
Estimates range from 0.4 to 1.6 million years; the figure above is the middle estimate.
About this estimate
Dates from Upham, Esselstyn & Jetz 2019, PLoS Biology 17:e3000494 (CC0).