🐻
Brown bear
Ursus arctos
Carnivores · Least concern
vs
🐺
Grey wolf
Canis lupus
Carnivores · Least concern
29 clips name both of them
24 million views between them.
Brown bear outweighs Grey wolf 8.2× — 241 kg against 29.2 kg.
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
Grey wolf
0.73 m
at the shoulder · measured lying down
Tale of the tape
Body mass
241 kg
🐻 Brown bear · COMBINE
29 kg
🐺 Grey wolf · COMBINE
Shoulder height
1.2 m
🐻 Brown bear
0.73 m
🐺 Grey wolf
Body length
2.29 m
🐻 Brown bear · COMBINE
1.27 m
🐺 Grey wolf · COMBINE
Top speed
47 km/h
🐻 Brown bear
62 km/h
🐺 Grey wolf
Bite force
751 N
🐻 Brown bear
593 N
🐺 Grey wolf
Maximum lifespan
50 yr
🐻 Brown bear · COMBINE
29 yr
🐺 Grey wolf · 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 Caniformia (suborder), home to 469 species.
They last shared an ancestor about 33 million years ago.
Estimates range from 28 to 40 million years; the figure above is the middle estimate.
About this estimate
Dates from Upham, Esselstyn & Jetz 2019, PLoS Biology 17:e3000494 (CC0).