The largest brown bears in the world. The largest bear in the world

In every forest of a region or region, not only in Russia, but also in the world, there is some kind of bear. Meeting him face to face does not promise anything good. Only a few can boast successful outcome confrontation with a bear. But not all of these animals are dangerous to humans. There are also quite harmless specimens. But, in any case, it is better to stay away from them. And especially from large individuals. In this article we will look at what the most big bears in the world.

Weight 54 – 140 kg

Bear with the most unusual appearance in our top. The shape of its head, eyes and nose resembles that of a sloth. The bear's lips look like a trunk, hence the specific name of the animal.

Distribution area: India, Pakistan, Bhutan, Nepal. Currently endangered and listed in the Red Book. Lives no more than 40 years.

Weight 120 - 140 kg

The animal with black short silky fur weighs 120-140 kg and has a body length of 150-170 cm. Distinctive feature The bear's mark is a "V" shaped spot on its chest. It was this that gave the second name to the mammal - Moon Bear.

The Himalayan bear can be found in Iran, Afghanistan, the Himalayas, and Pakistan. Rare in Korea. On the territory of Russia it lives in the Primorsky and Khabarovsk Territories.

The mammal, which ranks ninth on the list of the largest bears on the planet, can be called a herbivore, because almost 90% of its food consists of nuts, berries, and herbs. Of living creatures, it feeds only on frogs, mollusks and ants. Lives about 25 years. Listed in the Red Book.

Weight 70 – 140 kg

The only resident of the bear family in South America. Lives in Venezuela, Ecuador, Panama, Peru. It weighs from 70 to 140 kg, and the body length of the mammal reaches 150-180 cm. It lives only 21 years. The spectacled bear, one of the largest bears in the world, does not hibernate, although it makes a den for itself. He hunts at night or during twilight hours. In its herbivory it is second only to Big panda. It feeds on roots, herbs, and fruits. Very rarely attacks deer. Single bear. It is considered a critically endangered species. Listed in the Red Book.

Weight up to 160 kg

The most peaceful bear on the planet. It has a specific black and white coat color. The weight of the largest individuals reaches 160 kg. The length of the mammal is 1.3-1.8 meters.

It feeds only on bamboo. It can eat more than 30 kg of this plant per day. When there is a shortage of food, the panda, which is one of the largest bears, does not disdain small animals, insects, and bird eggs.

Panda habitat: Tibet and Sichuan - mountainous regions of China. Is under threat complete disappearance. There is a death penalty for killing a panda in China.

Weight up to 300 kg

This animal, one of the largest bears on the planet, is called a ghost bear by the Indians. It was named after the zoologist Francis Kermode. It was he who first described this type of bear.

The habitat is located on the west coast of Canada. Kermode is a subspecies of the American black bear. Having a white coat, he is, however, not an albino or a relative of Polar bears.

It feeds on both animal and plant foods: fruits, berries, rhizomes.

It has a length of up to 1.8 meters and a body weight of up to 300 kg.

Weight 330 – 360 kg

The length of the baribal, which occupies the middle of the ranking of the largest bears in the world, reaches two meters. The weight of an adult male is 330-360 kg. The largest individual that was shot had a body weight of 363 kg. The animal with a sharp muzzle and shiny black fur lives throughout almost the entire United States and Canada. Also common in northern Mexico. The bear feeds mainly on food of plant origin (berries, nuts), insects, and fish. Sometimes attacks sheep or pigs. Lives for about 10 years in natural conditions and 30 in captivity. The number of baribal individuals currently reaches 600,000.

Weight up to 450 kg

Subspecies of brown bear. Found in Alaska, western Canada, near Yellowstone Park and northwestern Washington. The mass of this large animal reaches 450 kg. It feeds mainly on fish (salmon), but does not disdain carrion.

The grizzly bear is very similar to the brown bear. There are almost no special differences. The difference is mainly in behavior, not appearance. The mammal is stronger than the brown bear.

Although the word “Grizzly” is translated as scary, the bear attacks people only when it is hungry or angry. The rest of the time, a person is not of particular value to the mammal, which occupies 4th place in the ranking of the largest bears in the world.

Weight 750 - 800 kg

Another subspecies of brown bear. The largest specimens reach a length of 2.5 meters and a body weight of 750-800 kg. An animal with dark brown fur lives near the basin of the Kolyma and Anadyr rivers. Occasionally occurs east of the river Yenisei, near the border of Eastern Kazakhstan and in the Chinese province of Xinjiang.

It is a solitary bear and hibernates during the winter. An animal receiving a bronze rating biggest bears in the world, eats plant and animal food in approximately equal proportions, that is, an omnivore. He loves fish very much: the Iberian brown bear can often be found near shallow rivers

Weight 800 – 1000 kg

And finally, the largest subspecies of brown bear and the silver medalist in the rating of large bears on the planet is Kodiak. The mammal, up to 2.8 meters long and weighing up to 800-1000 kg, is an omnivore. It has a muscular long body with a massive head and a short tail.

On this moment the number of these bears is 3000 individuals. They for a long time were endangered, so you can shoot no more than 160 animals per year. The man scares the beast. After meeting him, the bear may stop gaining weight for hibernation.

The species is common in the Kodiak archipelago, which is located off the coast of Alaska.

Weight up to 1 ton

A predatory animal, up to 3 meters long and weighing up to 1 ton, becomes the leader in the ranking of the largest bears on the planet. The species is widespread in the Arctic. There are a lot of Polar bears on the island of Spitsbergen. There are many more of them there than people. Spitsbergen is also called the “Island of Polar Bears”.

The most striking difference between the mammal and its southern counterparts is Long neck and a flat head. The animal feeds on animals such as sea hare, walrus, and arctic fox.
The lifespan of these solitary bears is no more than 30 years.

Now, the number of polar bears in Russia is 5-6 thousand animals. Worldwide - 28,000 individuals. In our country, hunting for it is prohibited, but poachers still shoot 150-200 bears a year.

US Forest Service officer shot and killed in Alaska giant bear-cannibal. The young man was hunting deer when a huge grizzly bear appeared fifty meters away and rushed at him. Having managed to raise his 7mm semi-automatic rifle, the hunter emptied his entire magazine into the attacking bear. The grizzly fell a few steps away from the man, but was still alive.

After reloading the rifle, the guy shot the bear in the head several times, and only this stopped his heart. Later the Department commission wildlife and Alaska State Fisheries determined that it was the most A big bear grizzly bear ever hunted in the world.

His weight was more than 726 kg, and his height, if he stood on his hind legs, was about 4.3 meters. After examining the contents of a grizzly bear's stomach, scientists found fragments of human bodies. The commission found that the grizzly bear has killed at least two people in the last 72 hours alone.

An investigation was immediately organized. Forest Service personnel followed the grizzly bear's trail and soon discovered a .38-caliber pistol with an empty clip. Not far from the gun, the remains of a tourist were found, who became the giant bear's last meal. In defense, the man managed to shoot six times, and he hit the grizzly four times before this monstrous animal killed him. The encounter occurred about two days before the grizzly bear was shot and killed by a Forest Service employee. The body of the second victim was never found. In total, Forest Service personnel found four .38 caliber bullets and 12 bullets from a 7 mm semi-automatic rifle in the bear's body.

In order to more clearly imagine the size of this monster, we can make the following comparison: if you are a person of average height, you would only reach his lower abdomen when the bear stood on its hind legs. His height was such that he could look through the roof of a one-story house or look into the windows of the second floor. And when the bear stood on four legs, then his eyes and yours would be at the same level.

Bears are the largest among predatory animals. For example, an adult lion can weigh about 230 kilograms, a tiger - 270 kilograms, but the weight of a large polar bear and grizzly bear reaches 450 kilograms. And yet the largest bear in the world is rightfully called the Alaskan brown bear. The weight of some males of this species was more than 680 kilograms with a height of about three meters. I wouldn't want to meet such a giant somewhere on the trail. But these are average figures, but in real life There are specimens of bears whose parameters are much higher than those above. There is still a debate among people about which bears are the biggest, this is expressed in hunting stories and legends.

The Guinness Book of Records names the white polar bear as the largest bear on the planet. Average weight these predators are in the range of 400-600 kg, length - 240-260 cm, height 1.6 m. The largest polar bear, which was measured, weighed 1002 kg according to one version, 900 kg according to another. The length of this polar bear was 3.5 m. The polar bear's menu includes mainly walruses and seals. Full physical fitness A male polar bear gains weight at the age of 9-10 years.

Among Alaskan brown bears there is an interesting subspecies, which scientists call Kodiak. So, among these Kodiaks, the heaviest bear measured was a giant, whose weight was 1134 kg. If he stood on his hind legs, then his height would be 4 m. Kodiaks are distinguished by long strong limbs, a muscular body and a massive head. These bears live alone, in winter, just like brown bears sleep. The Kodiak diet includes fish and a variety of plant foods in the form of nuts, roots, berries and grass. Kodiaks very rarely hunt other species of animals. The Kodiak is not afraid of water, so it usually settles along the river bank. Such bears live on south coast Alaska. There is even an island called Kodiak.

The closest relatives of Kodiak bears are grizzly bears, which also reach enormous sizes. Currently, the Kodiak population is constantly increasing. Most of them live in Kodiak National Nature Reserve which is protected by law.

Among fossil animals, bears were also large predators. According to scientists, the largest of them is called the prehistoric South American short-nosed bear. His height was 3.4 m, weight - 1.6 tons. The bones of this giant were found in 1935 in Argentina at the La Plata construction site. According to scientists, this bear was the largest predator on the planet about 2 million years ago. The weight of individual representatives of this species, according to scientists, could reach up to 2 tons.

Recently, a giant man-eating bear was shot and killed by a US Forest Service employee in Alaska. A special commission, after measuring the parameters of the killed bear, found that the prey turned out to be the largest grizzly bear in the world. Such a bear could stand on its hind legs and look at the second floor window. His weight was 726 kg, and his height on his hind legs was 4.3 m.

These are the biggest bears in the world, cute and menacing, cute and scary, in a word prominent representatives animal world.

The history of the search for the “biggest bear” in the East of Russia is fascinating and long. There is a lot to say that it is not finished yet. I had the opportunity to communicate with a number of people who took part in it, and even consulted them as a specialist. Many times curious people have asked me if I myself am looking for “the biggest bear.”

And I invariably disappointed them by answering.

No. I'm not looking. Because I don't believe in his existence.

As mentioned earlier, the search for the largest bear - as a trophy, and in general, for the animal with the greatest physical significance, has captivated and continues to captivate all hunters in the world. On the way to a real assessment of the size of these animals there is one significant hitch - to measure the mass of the animal in field conditions It is almost impossible, and the size of the skull, which is generally considered the main trophy throughout the world by which the size of an animal is estimated, does not always correspond to its physical dimensions.

What is a truly big brown bear considered to be, from the point of view of experts?

In the territory Russian Federation These are considered to be animals whose mass exceeds half a ton. Largest quantity information about such animals came to us from the era “ developed socialism”, when the meat of these animals was handed over to the state. Several animals with a mass exceeding 600 kg have been recorded in Kamchatka; two such monsters were noted in Magadan region and Primorye.

But here we are again faced with the cunning of commercial hunters and game managers, who were interested in inflating the weights of the animals they caught in every possible way, and therefore sold two or three small bears for meat instead of one, well, very large one. At least, in this regard, I am ready to vouch for the “Magadan” giants, and my colleague V.V. Aramilev – for the Primorsky one. Killer (!), i.e. constituting 65% of the live weight of the Ussuri monster, allegedly caught in the Olginsky region, amounted to 600 kg (in reality, such an animal would weigh a ton), however, V.V. Aramilev, through unobtrusive questions, established that instead of one “superbear” there was meat either four or six small ones were delivered.

I also failed to weigh the largest of the bears killed before my eyes. This animal was shot in the upper reaches of the Anadyr River, and had a total length from the tip of the nose to the tip of the tail of 285 cm. But its skin with head and paws, weighed in the presence of several witnesses on a heavy-duty dynamometer, pulled one hundred twenty-five kilograms. Which gives us, when applying coefficients, the body mass of this beast is more than six hundred kilograms.

However, the largest bears were killed (and sometimes weighed in front of witnesses) on the other side of the Pacific Ocean.

The first bear to kill, claiming to be the “largest in the world,” was a certain Larry Rivkin, in 1909, on the Admiralty Islands, off the southwest coast of Alaska. This bear weighed 680 kilograms. Next came the turn of the islands of Kodiak and Afognak, where animals with a live body weight of 682, 710 and 780 kg were shot successively in 1912, 1927, 1933. The last animal continues to be the largest of the bears reliably weighed by human hands. He was shot and killed by Wrangell hunter Frank Cooper.

But this does not mean that this is the largest brown bear that fell into human hands and was weighed!

As you know, the United States is conducting a program to monitor brown bear populations, which necessarily includes capturing and weighing the animals. So, during its implementation, on Kodiak Island in 1983, a bear weighing 870 kg was immobilized and weighed!

But today we are not talking about the largest sizes that brown bears reach. We tell the story of the search for the “biggest bear” - a mystical monster supposedly living in the East of Russia.

“The Biggest Bear” by Oleg Kuvaev.

Today, the name of Oleg Kuvaev is slowly disappearing from the ears of the most romantic romantics. And at the turn of the 60s - 70s of the 20th century, he was one of the rulers of thoughts, a real idol of a significant part of the youth who aspired to the Andromeda Nebula, in Arctic, Antarctica. He was a professional geologist who became a good writer. His novel “Territory” and wonderful northern stories made the Soviet North for a significant part of young people something like the American frontier - a land of strong and noble men, strong-willed decisions and stunning nature, resisting human invasion.

Oleg Kuvaev, already an employee of the Around the World magazine, undertook a number of his own geographical studies in the early 70s. In choosing objects for them, he relied on information received from geologists and Chukchi reindeer herders. Among them was a very large bear.

“We heard a lot of interesting things... About a giant mountain bear, which is occasionally found in the remote valleys of the Anadyr Highlands. That bear is so big and fierce that at the sight of even his tracks (the shepherds showed with their hands the size of the tracks), both people and deer take flight. This bear, however, is very rare, and not every shepherd, even those who have spent their whole life in the mountains, manage to see it.”

As an indirect confirmation of the existence of this “super bear,” Kuvaev cites a reference to the famous Canadian writer Farley Mowat, to whom the Canadian Eskimos also told about the terrible and ferocious bear of the Barrens country - the ackle.

“Akla, a terrible brown beast, twice the height of a white polar bear; This mysterious monster, which few white people have heard of; a ferocious animal that leaves footprints in the sand half the length of a man’s arm; akla, whose name is unambiguous with the word<ужас>in the Eskimo language!

Who could this “biggest bear” be in Oleg Kuvaev’s version?

The geological writer offered a choice of two versions of its origin: either it was an unknown cave bear that has survived to this day; or the “biggest bear” could be a previously unknown subspecies of brown bear, like the giant bear from the islands of Kodiak, Shuyak and Afognak.

As the point of search for this animal, Kuvaev chose perhaps the most inaccessible place in Chukotka at that time - the vicinity of Lake Elgygytgyn, a giant meteorite crater located in the middle of the Anadyr Plateau, on the watershed of three seas - Bering, Chukotka and Okhotsk; and two oceans: the Arctic and the Pacific.

But the inaccessibility of this region was, perhaps, its only attractive factor.

Oleg Kuvaev, in search of the “Chukchi akly” or Kodiak, spent a month and a half on the banks of Elgygytgyn, and during these searches he discovered only a few of the most common Chukchi bears - small, pot-bellied and yellow color. He didn’t even have to observe traces of the “Chukchi akla”.

The writer published an essay about the search for this monster entitled “The Biggest Bear” in the magazine “Around the World.” True, in his conclusion the writer did not put a period, but a bold ellipsis, hinting that now, they say, “the biggest bear” could not be found, but in the near future, maybe...

I myself was less fortunate than the writer Kuvaev. In the vicinity of Lake Elgygytgyn in different years yours truly had to spend more than six months, or three full field seasons. And in this place I studied the notorious brown bears.

I must say that this region, from the point of view of a bear-hunting specialist, is one of the most ungrateful. The biological productivity of this area is unusually low, and the small bears living here have home ranges of several thousand square kilometers. This is understandable - in smaller territories, even medium-sized Chukchi bears are simply not able to feed themselves and their offspring.

But animals not only need to eat, but also reproduce!

So, the gigantic areas that small Chukchi bears occupy only allow them to meet once a year with their sexual partners - in order to mate and produce offspring. And if these areas were much larger (which inevitably follows from the increase in the size of bears), then animals of both sexes would hardly be able to find each other during the rutting period.

While studying brown bears in the territory of central Chukotka, I met more than five hundred animals and measured more than one thousand prints of their tracks. So, not a single paw print known to me exceeded nineteen and a half centimeters in width. By the way, this particular animal was shot, and although it was not possible to weigh it, we measured its length from the tip of its nose to its tail - it was two meters and ninety centimeters. But in any case, a giant bear, like all semi-mythical animals, may have the most wonderful properties, but the ability to fly through the air is unlikely to be one of them! But I didn’t have to observe any traces the length of “half a man’s arm.”

The fact that bears are strong individualists and live separately, occupying a vast territory, also does not speak in favor of the existence somewhere of a race of giant bears unknown to civilized humanity. The fact is that even twenty-five to thirty huge animals (and this is the minimum that a population of a large animal can contain for its sustainable existence) will occupy such a gigantic space that even in the relatively deserted expanses of Eastern Siberia they will regularly come across someone on the eyes.

Enthusiasts of the search for “the biggest bear in Kuvaev” can continue their discussions ad infinitum. However, I personally would venture to suggest that such a good connoisseur of the nature of Chukotka, which Kuvaev certainly was, was unlikely to seriously assume its existence in the Current Reality. He just needed at least some excuse to visit his favorite places in a relatively free manner, and not as part of a geological survey party.

“The Biggest Bear” by Vladimir Orlov.

The next one who began searching for the “biggest bear” in Chukotka was Moscow journalist, correspondent for the magazine “Around the World” Vladimir Orlov. As a matter of fact, V. Orlov’s research was a direct continuation of the work of O. Kuvaev - the activities of both were financed by the same publication. V. Orlov was a true enthusiastic naturalist, and made several interesting expeditions in Chukotka, Taimyr and northern Yakutia. His biggest dream was to capture a white gyrfalcon alive, and he eventually achieved this.

Orlov began looking for “the biggest bear” on the same lake Elgygytgyn (I can’t help but sneer at how often it’s enough for one person to set the wrong search vector for all subsequent neophytes to follow it without bothering with a more detailed analysis of the situation). But then he was part of the Institute expedition biological problems Severa rafted south along the river flowing from this lake, and bearing the name “River with Rocky Banks” - Enmyvaama.

This step was a significant amendment to the Kuvaev plan. Because waterway to the south it led to the Anadyr River basin, rich in dwarf cedar, fish and berries. This means that they represented significantly more favorable conditions to live there large bears. True, none of the animals Orlov encountered went beyond the usual bear size, but the Moscow journalist, despite everything, came to the conclusion that “the bears in Chukotka are somehow not like that.”

He outlined the history of his search for this beast in a book, which he called “In the Land of the Big Bear.”

Vladimir Orlov, in addition to the already existing versions put forward by O. Kuvaev, added two more - that this beast is wandering in summer time on dry land by a polar bear; and also that this giant bear may be a hybrid of a polar and brown bear.

Both of these versions, oddly enough, are not at all as absurd as they seem at first glance.

Polar bears actually sometimes make quite long voyages deep into the continent. But these visits are not regular, but are always associated with difficult ice conditions off the coast of Chukotka, when, in the absence of breeding waters, pinnipeds (the main food of the polar bear) leave this region. In the mid-eighties, there was a known case when several dozen polar bears traveled from the Chukotka coast far to the south, and covered several hundred kilometers along mountain ranges, forest-tundra and northern taiga. But all these animals ended the same way - they went to the outskirts settlements and to reindeer herding brigades and were shot in an exhausted state. This story itself shows that such a highly specialized sea ​​predator like a polar bear , cannot live for a long time in such an alien environment.

The possibility of hybridization between polar and stormy bears actually exists. Moreover, such experiments were carried out in a number of zoos and gave interesting results. Hybrids of the common toptygin and umka were distinguished by an elongated body, a small fish-like head flattened at the top, and a pleasant color of the skin a la “coffee with milk”.

Moreover, these animals brought fertile offspring, which is once again proven by the fact that the ancestors of the brown and polar bears diverged relatively recently - about ten to fifteen thousand years ago.

There is only one catch here - the polar bear's rut ​​takes place in March, and the brown bear's in June, so these animals cannot interbreed naturally, without artificial insemination.

I consider the expedition undertaken by another representative of the creative workshop, the writer Albert Miftakhutdinov, to be a logical continuation of the search for the “biggest bear” by the magazine “Around the World”. Actually, his expedition was simply a repetition of V. Orlov’s rafting trip, and differed from it only in that Albert Valeevich still found “his” biggest bear!

“And then we saw him! A bear was grazing in the middle of the slope. We swam across the stream and came out to the slope. It was a gigantic black-brown specimen with light tan marks on the underbelly and sides. The size of one and a half to two cows. Something unimaginable. He was peacefully eating grass and berries...

I have seen brown Kamchatka bears, met them nose to nose, participated in an expedition to catch and tag polar bear cubs on Wrangel Island, but I have never seen anything like this even among whites.

... Biologists have taken into account the results of our search for the largest bear.”

Over all the subsequent years that the author of this article spent in this area, nothing like this was encountered on Enmyvaam. To this day I don’t know what failed the Magadan prose writer—observation or taste?

“The Biggest Bear” by Rodion Sivolobov.

In the mid-eighties of the 20th century, the same magazine “Around the World” published an article that talked about a hunter from the north of Kamchatka (now the Koryak Autonomous Okrug) Rodion Sivolobov, who claimed that he repeatedly met another “not like that” bear in his lands. According to Sivolobov, local residents call this bear “Irkuyem”, he, again, is unimaginable large sizes, but also has some other differences in the physical composition of the body (which zoologists usually call morphological). The Irkuyem has a short muzzle, long front and short hind legs, and a tail-shaped croup.

Frankly, when I first read this description, the famous “bear from Mount St. Elias” from “Northern Tales” by Jack London came to mind. That bear, naturally, was very large and just as ferocious, but lived on such steep slopes that the legs on one side of the body (I don’t remember, on the right or left) were much shorter than the limbs on the other side.

“Well, less for the Big Bear, more for the Big Bear,” I thought philosophically, but continued to follow the topic. The theme developed. A story by Sivolobov himself was published, calling for more attention to the stories of local residents, and lamenting that none of the scientific people are in a hurry to urgently check the fact of the existence of an unusual bear in the north of Kamchatka. Leningrad zoologists suggested that Sivolobov himself get the mysterious beast and boil its skull, which could become proof of the existence of this beast in reality, and not in the stories of Chukchi and Koryak shepherds.

Rodion Sivolobov, according to him, caught the strange bear several times. But with the remains of this beast, as befits a mythological animal, all sorts of devilry happened all the time. That's skins mysteriously burned in a barn, the skulls were taken by Koryak shepherds to perform some kind of cult... Therefore, I was extremely surprised when a game warden from Kamchatka, who came to Moscow, proudly announced that he had with him an Irkuyem skull, which he was taking to the Zoological Institute in the city on the Neva .

When I looked at the skull of the animal, which was placed in front of me on the table of an ordinary Moscow kitchen, I experienced all the fullness of feelings that visited the head of the Horns and Hooves office, Ostap Bender, in the episode when a certain man appeared in front of them with a pair of crooked, smelly horns and demanded to immediately accept them for money.

In front of me lay a nondescript shard, completely different from the suitcase-shaped skulls of the bears of Kamchatka, Kodiak and the Alaska Peninsula, of which, by that time, I had seen plenty. It belonged to a bear of quite advanced age. The facial part of the skull was, indeed, somewhat short. But the brown bear in general is such a diverse animal in terms of its skull structure that I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary in the Irkuyem’s skull. Moreover, I was allowed to measure it, and in a sample of medium-sized bears eastern Siberia- who inhabit it from Irkutsk to Magadan - he took his place. Of course, some of the parameters of his skull were quite peculiar - but they remained within the limits of statistical error.

In any case, looking at this skull, I realized one thing - Irkuyem is by no means the same “big bear”.

“The Biggest Bear” by Professor Vereshchagin.

Nikolai Kuzmich Vereshchagin, a professor at the Zoological Institute in St. Petersburg, was by far the largest bear specialist in Russia. At the same time, he was known as a significant original, and being one, he managed to give a start to life to one of the most bizarre legends about the giant bears of Kamchatka and Chukotka. Having learned about the description of Irkuyem made by Rodion Sivolobov, he ventured to suggest (and not just anywhere, but on the pages of periodicals, in the magazine “Hunting and Hunting Management”) that Irkuyem is none other than the one that has survived to this day... no, not a cave bear, but another fossil giant - the short-faced bear Arctodos simus. As evidence that the notorious Irkuyem is precisely this animal, Professor Vereshchagin cited three important details from the descriptions of the Kamchatka hunter - an overhanging butt, shortened hind legs and an atypical head shape with a short muzzle.

Meanwhile, Arctodos simus, apparently, never lived on the territory of modern Eurasia. All his remains were found in the northwest of America - in western Alaska and Canada.

It was a truly large animal, second in size only to the even more ancient fossil giant, Andrewsarchus. The height at the withers of this giant reached two meters, and it most likely weighed one and a half tons. He was a very prominent representative of the mammoth fauna of Beringia. However, scientists studying Arctodos came to the conclusion that, firstly, Arctodos never crossed the Bering Strait and did not live on its Asian side; secondly, it was not a predator, but a scavenger, albeit a very large one, corresponding in size to the rest of the mammoth fauna, whose carrion it fed on; and thirdly, it died out about ten thousand years ago, unable to withstand competition... with the much more flexible brown bear.

I saw giant Arctodos skulls in the museum of Fairbanks, Alaska, and once again I realized that the skull that they tried to pass off to me as an Irkuyem skull has nothing to do with Arctodos.

Cave bear.

The question of whether the numerous “biggest bears” of the Siberian North could turn out to be miraculously surviving individuals of the cave bear arises so often that I, perhaps, will dwell on it in more detail.

The cave bear, judging by the reconstructions of paleontologists, was very strange creature, who lived mainly in caves. The front of his body was massive and raised, his back was lowered, which is why he could not move quickly over significant distances. The skull of the cave bear was very large and massive, the teeth were intended for grinding plant food to a much greater extent than that of the brown bear. Cave bears were divided into two subspecies - large and small cave bears, and the small cave bear was the size of an ordinary brown European bear, only much more clumsy. A large cave bear could reach a weight of seven hundred kilograms, according to other sources - up to a ton, and was even more herbivorous and just as clumsy. In any case, their remains were not found further than the mountains. southern Siberia, and in the North-East, in the region where there are no karst caves “as a class”, they never lived.

According to scientists, the disappearance of cave bears decisive role played by the people living next door to them - they simply used them as a food resource, because hunting these clumsy animals locked in rock shelters was one of the simplest for our ancestors.

The largest bear on the Dark Continent.

The history of the search for the “biggest bear” is replete with all sorts of adventures and absurdities. One of its parts took place quite far from the vast expanses of our Motherland. The fact is that in the fifties of the 20th century, they were looking for the “biggest bear” not just anywhere, but in East Africa!

As usual, it all started with the stories of the Ugandan aborigines. They say that in their forests there is a giant black furry beast, the size of a hippopotamus, that eats people, destroys bees, and can stand on its hind legs, like a human. When visiting hunters showed them photographs of bears in a hunting guide, the natives nodded confidently - yes, that’s him!

A special expedition was sent to search for the African bear, which spent more than six months in the jungle, feeding mosquitoes and grateful jungle inhabitants, but never found the giant bear.

It’s interesting that in historical times there were bears in Africa! But they inhabited not the eastern and central parts of it, but the very north - the Atlas Range in the territory of modern Morocco and Algeria, where their remains were found by paleontologists in caves. It was a very ordinary brown bear, judging by the fragments of skulls - quite medium in size.

The ways in which the “biggest bears” are born.

Almost all of the “biggest bears” that I know anything about originate from the stories of local residents. In general, I personally am inclined to consider such tales of the aborigines as some kind of moral compensation on their part for the obvious technical superiority of the aliens that we are to them. I do not understand the reasons why it is so common for us to attribute to primitive peoples the “simplicity of the sons of the deserts.” Personal experience of communicating with them shows that they are no less cunning, deceitful and thieving than you and me. But the presence of a certain set of knowledge, which you and I do not possess, just as elevates a local resident over a stranger, as does the latter’s ability to handle electronic devices or modern weapons. And what this knowledge can be, we ourselves suggest to him every now and then.

So, last quote this article:

“I soon discovered that the pygmies were literally eager to help us. As soon as we mentioned this or that animal, the little hunters joyfully promised to get it, even if they had never seen it before or heard anything about it. I had with me a copy of Rowland Ward's book "On Record Trophies of Large Wild Animals." It contained illustrations of wild animals from all over the world. I began to turn over the pages of this book to show the pygmies what kind of animals we need. The little hunters showed such a willingness to help us that they even pointed to a picture of an American elk and a Scottish antlered deer, asking at the same time if I would like to have one or two specimens of this animal. The highlight came when I turned the page to the picture of the Arctic walrus. The smallest of the hunters pointed at the picture and said:

I am very familiar with this animal; it lives in the very depths of the forest and appears only at night. He is terribly evil and kills people with his huge tusks, after which he feeds on their meat. But if you wish, I will catch him for you.”

J.Hunter. Hunter.

So: the history of the search for the “biggest bear” is the history of man’s search for one of the newly created myths, one of the “Holy Grails” of the Siberian North. And when, relatively recently, on the shores of the same Lake of Lost Ice, I met, as part of a group of geologists, a young worker who had come from Blagoveshchensk in search of the “biggest bear,” I did not give him any arguments in the absence of the existence of this beast. And he simply said:

- It's your choice, search. I personally didn’t come across it...

In any case, I didn’t cheat my heart too much. After all, there’s just a really big brown bear wandering around somewhere...

The white or polar bear is adapted to live in one very specific habitat - on a drifting sea ​​ice; and its food consists almost exclusively of seals.

Among the largest bears are the Kodiak brown bear, grizzly bear, and polar bear. These are all animals of enormous weight and length. There is also a record holder among teddy toy bears.

The biggest teddy bear

The record-breaking teddy bear, recognized as the largest in the world, greeted visitors to the plush toy museum every day for almost twenty years, standing at the entrance. The museum was located in the city of Statford. All this time he was the subject of admiration for young visitors. The height of this toy is three meters and thirty centimeters. It's hard to imagine the weight of this giant.

Over the years, the exhibition was visited by at least a million people. Unfortunately, the museum was closed in 2007, and this bear, like the rest of the exhibits, was put up for sale.

Big polar bears

Polar bears have several other names - polar bear, sea bear, northern bear and oshkuy. The polar bear descended from the brown bear. The largest specimens grow up to three meters or more and can weigh about eight hundred kilograms, however, this is very rare. Usually the male is within the length of two to two and a half meters, his weight does not exceed half a ton.

Externally, the oshkuy and the brown bear have noticeable differences. The polar bear's head is flat on an elongated neck, and its ears are small. The wool is not only white, but also yellowish. It's surprising that everyone polar bears black skin. This is impossible to notice due to the dense fur.

Oshkuy lives in the northern hemisphere and feeds on walruses, seals, sea ​​hares and other marine animals. To catch them, the bear hides in a shelter and then stuns them with a blow to the head.

Polar bears have long been listed in the Red Book. The reason is that they reproduce slowly, and their young often become prey to other predators. These bears are hunted by poachers. Every year they destroy at least two hundred individuals.

Huge Kodiak bears

One of the subspecies of brown bears is the Kodiak. It is the largest among the planet's predators. This is confirmed by its size. The height at the withers of an individual of this subspecies reaches one and a half meters, and the length is about four meters. The weight of the giant bear is also striking. So, a female weighs a quarter of a ton, and an adult male weighs almost four hundred and fifty kilograms. These parameters are average, and there are specimens that reach a weight of one ton.

The habitat of this subspecies is Kodiak Island and the islands of the Kodiak archipelago, that is, where winter does not last long and there is always a lot of different foods. Like other bears, winter time Kodiaks hibernate. Their food is not only animals, these bears do not refuse carrion, they eat roots, berries and herbs. During the salmon spawning period, Kodiaks enjoy eating it with pleasure.

Animals mate in the summer, and the development of a fertilized cell begins in the fall. No more than three cubs are born in January or February, when the female is in a state of hibernation. Children remain with their mother for the first three years of life.

Kodiaks are an endangered subspecies of brown bears. There are less than three thousand of them left. However, according to official permission, one hundred and sixty individuals are shot annually.

The largest grizzlies

Another large subspecies of brown bear, considered the second largest in size after the Kodiak, is called the grizzly. Its habitat is Alaska and Canada. Until recently, grizzlies could be found in Mexico. Outwardly, he is not particularly different from other brown bears. The only difference is the length of its claws, which can reach fifteen centimeters. It is for this reason that grizzlies never climb trees.

Some individuals weigh about a ton and are about four meters long. From a distance, grizzlies appear slightly grayish, the reason being that, being brown, they are covered in gray fur in some places. While bears are small, their claws are still very small, which allows grizzlies to climb trees, destroy hives and eat plant foods.

The main diet of an adult is animal food. Grizzly is an excellent fisherman. It is very dangerous for a person to encounter this predator. He can deliver a fatal blow with one blow of his paw. It is known that this subspecies of brown bear and polar bear can interbreed.

The largest bear in the world

The largest bear in history is considered to be a giant short-faced cave bear that once lived in South America. He is known as Arctodus. According to scientists, such bears lived from about two million years ago to five hundred thousand years ago. Short-faced cave bear skull

In 2006, a huge man-eating grizzly bear was killed in Alaska. If he could stand on his hind legs, he would be about four meters and thirty centimeters tall. The bear's weight turned out to be seven hundred twenty-six kilograms.

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