Among terrestrial carnivores, Ursidae are the "ceiling" in body size, and among Ursidae, the largest is the polar bear. However, many people have doubts about which of the two animals is bigger, the polar bear or the Kodiak brown bear. There are some doubts, but judging from the current scientific research data, the average weight and maximum weight of polar bears are significantly heavier than that of Kodiak brown bears.
The polar bear is made up of Ancient brown bears evolved about 600,000 years ago. Due to the short time, they have not yet formed complete reproductive isolation from the grizzly bears, a subspecies of brown bears in North America, so they can interbreed and produce fertile offspring - Gray polar bear.
Since polar bears are mainly distributed near the Arctic Circle, where vegetation is sparse, polar bears, unlike other bears, have almost become strict carnivores. Although polar bears are only distributed near the Arctic Circle, the area of water covered by the ice in the entire Arctic Circle is quite large, so there are certain differences in the size of polar bears living in different areas.
On the whole, the size of polar bears decreases from north to south. For example, the average weight of adult male polar bears near the southernmost Beaufort Sea is only about 368 kilograms, while near Fox Bay The average weight of male polar bears has reached 510 kilograms. Overall, the average weight of male polar bears is about 450 kilograms.
On the other hand, the Kodiak brown bear has always been considered to be able to compete with the polar bear in size. Its size is exactly the opposite of the polar bear. It increases in size from north to south. The average male in the south is The weight is about 390 kilograms, which is 60 kilograms less than the average polar bear.
In terms of the largest individual, the Kodiak brown bear is also slightly inferior. Judging from the exact records, the largest Kodiak brown bear is a male in captivity in the Great Plains Zoo of the United States. With good food and good food, it lived for 22 years and weighed 966 kilograms. It is worth mentioning that its fat thickness is 23 centimeters. In the wild, the weight of the heaviest Kodiak brown bear is Reached 751 kilograms.
Polar bears are not very big in captivity because it is difficult for the captive environment to simulate the polar bear's native environment, which will lead to a decrease in the polar bear's appetite. Therefore, the largest polar bear comes from the wild and is a hunting individual, weighing At 1002 kilograms, that is, the largest polar bear is larger than the Kodiak brown bear, so the largest bear must be the polar bear.
However, are polar bears terrestrial animals? There is a certain controversy, because terrestrial animals refer to animals that live completely or basically on land, and the frozen area of the Arctic Ocean where polar bears live is actually on the sea, and polar bears rely very much on ice floes for hunting, and their prey is basically It also comes from the ocean, so many zoologists define polar bears as aquatic mammals.
Of course, there are many zoologists who object to this division, because aquatic animals refer to animals that spend all or most of their lives in the water, while polar bears spend a relatively short time in the water, while Antarctic animals The continent is also covered by glaciers, and penguins are considered terrestrial animals. Therefore, from this perspective, polar bears are more in line with the definition of terrestrial animals. However, we won’t dwell too much on this issue. Let’s take a look at whether any of the terrestrial carnivores (order Carnivora) can beat a polar bear?
If you want to defeat the polar bear, you must at least be able to compete with its size. In today's carnivorous order, large animals basically live in the ocean, such as walruses, sea lions, etc., on land There are indeed relatively few carnivores that can rival polar bears in size.
In the cat family, the only ones that can be seen in front of polar bears are lions and tigers. However, although ligers are the largest cats, their size cannot compete with polar bears, because even male lions ( The average weight of Kruger lions and tigers (Siberian tigers) is only 200 kilograms, less than half that of polar bears.
Although ligers and polar bears have no chance of fighting, polar bears, the largest tiger subspecies, interact with brown bears in Siberia. According to relevant literature, in the interaction between Siberian tigers and Ussuri brown bears , male Siberian tigers can hunt female brown bears, and male brown bears can hunt female tigers. It can be said that they fight back and forth.
The average weight of male Ussuri brown bears is about 240 kilograms, which is more than 40 kilograms heavier than the average weight of male tigers. This also leads to the fact that Siberian tigers can only kill female brown bears at their limit. Brown bears (average 150 kilograms) are difficult to kill in the face of brown bears with a slight advantage in weight, and Siberian tigers, let alone polar bears that are more than twice their own weight. Therefore, lions and tigers have no chance of winning against adult polar bears.
Since cats are not enough, only the bear family is left. After all, the largest dog family is not as big as the jaguar, the third largest cat family. Among the bear family, the one closest to the polar bear is the bear family. Diak brown bear. So,Which of these two behemoths is more powerful? For this problem, many people think that it is the Kodiak brown bear, because in reality, due to the intensification of the greenhouse climate and the reduction of Arctic Ocean ice floes, polar bears began to migrate south, while grizzly bears began to migrate north, which led to They will meet in the wild, and in the encounter, the polar bear is usually chased by the grizzly bear. Therefore, the Kodiak brown bear, which is larger than the grizzly bear, is obviously more of a deterrent to the polar bear.
But in fact, this The statement is rather one-sided. In reality, polar bears do avoid conflicts with grizzly bears. This is because it is now much more difficult for polar bears to obtain food, which leads them to actively avoid conflicts between predators of the same type or similar sizes. After all, conflicts are not limited to other conflicts. In addition to consuming a lot of energy, there is also the possibility of injury, but this does not mean that polar bears cannot defeat grizzly bears, or even Kodiak brown bears. Why do you say that? Let’s talk about it in detail from the following two aspects:
The difference in prey often reflects the hunting ability of carnivores. Polar bears mainly feed on marine mammals such as seals, sea lions and walruses. Kodiak brown bears feed more on fish, small mammals, birds and fruits. This difference is mainly due to the different environments in which the two species live. Polar bears live in polar environments and cannot obtain sufficient food from land and can only rely on food in the ocean to sustain life; Kodiak brown bears can find food on land and have a wider range of food choices.
However, purely from the perspective of prey size, polar bears are obviously superior.
As for the size difference between Kodiak brown bears and polar bears, we can see from the above data that polar bears obviously have the advantage, and in addition to their advantages in body length and weight, polar bears have The shape also has advantages, because the bodies of polar bears and lions are more slender than Kodiak brown bears, which makes polar bears stronger than Kodiak brown bears in terms of flexibility. It is precisely because of poor flexibility that Kodiak brown bears hunt Ability is relatively poor, and flexibility plays a role in avoidance and counterattack in combat. Therefore, polar bears are stronger.
Polar bears are indeed the ceiling for the combat effectiveness of terrestrial carnivores. Their obviously advantageous size keeps other carnivores at bay, and polar bears are unambiguous when it comes to hunting animals.
However, due to the influence of the greenhouse effect, the survival status of polar bears is not optimistic because they are too dependent on ice floes."hunting ground".