I knew they were big bears but not TWICE A HUMAN size! I didn't even google this image for the polar bear I wanted to see how big a black bear is.

guess I'm never going to Antarctica!

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[–] 14 points 8 hours ago

It is not just that they are enormous and strong. Its that they will actively hunt you for food unlike most brown or black bears.

I think they are fairly unique among the animal kingdom for being willing to chance attacking a human. Most other predators don't find the risk of not knowing exactly how it would go to be worth it.

There is a reason that a lot of the people that you see that live or spend a lot of time in the parts of the world that Polar Bears live in don't often go outside without high caliber weapons.

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  • [–] 22 points 10 hours ago* (1 child)

    If it's brown lay down
    If it's black fight back
    If it's white say goodnight

    There's a reason why they say that

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  • [–] 12 points 9 hours ago

    There's reasons in rural communities in Canada that polar bears frequent that it is custom to keep your car doors unlocked at all times, so if someone walking runs into a polar bear they can dive into a random car for safety.

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  • [–] 4 points 7 hours ago (2 children)

    The woman looks so small next to those bears.

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    [–] 7 points 9 hours ago (4 children)

    Big bastards best stay away lest they suffer double nipple twisters.

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  • [–] 3 points 9 hours ago (3 children)

    YSK bears have three pairs of nipples, better bring the sextuple twist or you'll be a bear stain

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  • [–] 4 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago) (2 children)

    I have great bite strength and practically prehensile toes. That last nipple might be a deal breaker though.

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  • [–] 82 points 16 hours ago (7 children)

    They're northern Hemisphere, not Antarctica. We have them in our province (Manitoba), but yes they're big. On average tho not quite as big as the painting there shows.

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  • [–] 10 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago)

    This would be a female bear, as she is with her cubs. Polar bears are actually the second most sexually dimorphic mammal. Consequently males are vastly bigger than females.

    The most sexually dimorphic? The elephant seal. Those dudes are immense.

    Edit: this, I read on wikipedia a couple of years ago. The information is no longer there but the fact that polar bears and elephant seals are among the most dimorphic mammals remains. The precise ranking is perhaps a little more obscure. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_bear

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  • [–] 9 points 14 hours ago (2 children)

    I knew it! Seeing them in a Zoo many years back I got the impression they were pretty big but not THAT massive.

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  • [–] 15 points 14 hours ago* (1 child)

    I think the painting shows the largest they've found, not the norm. It's like showing Robert Wadlow (The tallest guy in the world at 8 ft 11.1 in (2.72 m) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Wadlow) to show the size of humans. Yes we can get that large, but it's an extreme example.

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  • [–] 6 points 13 hours ago (1 child)

    If one of the average sized ones rises up in front of you and roars, I bet it would look just as big as that painting.

    Can anyone confirm? Probably not.

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  • [–] 5 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago)

    Yup, Not many people get the opportunity to see one up close and live to tell about it, unless there's something REALLY solid in between them. Like that Nat Geo guy in the cage. https://youtu.be/U-S4NbX5IYE They're absolutely terrifying up close...

    They don't typically roar tho, unless they're fighting or f..uh screwing. And they're not scared of anything.

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    [–] 5 points 10 hours ago

    I guess there’s a good reason the movie, The Edge, was set in Alaska instead of Antarctica.

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  • [–] 178 points 19 hours ago (14 children)

    Good news, Antarctica is still polar bear free ;)

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    [–] 34 points 15 hours ago (13 children)

    Arctus = “Bear”, Anti = “against” in ancient Greek, or “opposite” in modern meaning.

    Arctic = bears are here

    Anti-arctic = opposite bears, or “no bears”.

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  • [–] 15 points 12 hours ago (2 children)

    Has absolutely nothing to do with actual bears though.

    The name comes from the constellation Ursa Major, which in Greek was Arktos Megale. Both mean the Great Bear.

    Basically it just means north and not north because the Ursa Major constellation has the North Star in it.

    It does just kinda work out that bears are in the northern hemisphere and not the southern hemisphere. There’s only one bear native to the southern hemisphere, the Spectacled Bear native to the Andes mountain in South America. There are no bears native to Africa or Oceania at all.

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  • [–] 5 points 13 hours ago (2 children)

    This has come up before on lemmy.

    Wouldn’t a better translation given the context be something like the place opposite to the place where there are bears? It’s not like the Greeks somehow intuited that there was such a place and that there would be no bears there.

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    [–] 7 points 11 hours ago

    Cave bears used to make polar bears look small.

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  • [–] 78 points 18 hours ago (4 children)

    If it's black, fight back. If it's brown, lay down. If it's white, say good night.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 hours ago

    I like the rhyme but I mean, what the fuck are the chances of running into a polar bear. As in, if you live near polar bears, you definately know how terrifying they are and don’t need to have a guide like this.

    No, I’m not fun at parties.

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    [–] 20 points 15 hours ago (4 children)

    I've studied bears for a while now. There's actually a proven strategy for fighting polar bears. First you dodge to the left, then jump as high as you can and punch them in the eye. By the time they realize what's happened, it'll all be over and you'll be opening your eyes, hoping you prayed to the right god

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    [–] 3 points 10 hours ago (3 children)
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    [–] 18 points 16 hours ago (2 children)

    Get me a saddle

    I'm about to show you something you can only do once

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    [–] 12 points 15 hours ago (4 children)

    I think the sizes shown are probably biggest specimen. Black bears can get pretty big, but I've never encountered one that was taller than me.

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    [–] 22 points 18 hours ago

    I will say, those bears represent the upper end of the ‘weight ranges’ for those 3 species. Average sizes would be a bit less.

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