🐻❄️
Polar bear
Ursus maritimus
Carnivores · Vulnerable
vs
🐺
Grey wolf
Canis lupus
Carnivores · Least concern
2 clips name both of them
14 million views between them.
Polar bear outweighs Grey wolf 13× — 372 kg against 29.2 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).
Polar bear
1.45 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
372 kg
🐻❄️ Polar bear · COMBINE
29 kg
🐺 Grey wolf · COMBINE
Shoulder height
1.45 m
🐻❄️ Polar bear
0.73 m
🐺 Grey wolf
Body length
2.25 m
🐻❄️ Polar bear · COMBINE
1.27 m
🐺 Grey wolf · COMBINE
Top speed
39 km/h
🐻❄️ Polar bear
62 km/h
🐺 Grey wolf
Bite force
2,121 N
🐻❄️ Polar bear
593 N
🐺 Grey wolf
Maximum lifespan
45 yr
🐻❄️ Polar 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).