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!

edit: okay we got ANOTHER TIL. Apparently polar bears don’t live in Antarctica!

…I need to watch more nature documentaries…

  • HexesofVexes@lemmy.worldEnglish
    4·
    15 小时前

    Welp, time to up the anti on the old “man or bear” debate.

    Would you rather be stuck in a frozen wasteland containing a male nazi or a polar bear?

  • flop_leash_973@lemmy.worldEnglish
    271·
    1 天前

    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.

  • insanemantis@lemmy.worldEnglish
    31·
    1 天前

    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

    • PhoenixDog@lemmy.worldEnglish
      22·
      1 天前

      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.

        • schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
          464·
          1 天前

          because it’s not directly true, Antarctica means “land opposite the place below the bear-shaped constellations”, not “land without bears”.

        • Earthwormjim91@lemmy.worldEnglish
          121·
          1 天前

          Because the name actually doesn’t have anything to do with real bears.

          It was directional about the constellation Ursa Major (which in Greek is Arktos Megale).

          There’s also Ursa Minor which is the little bear constellation, that contains the north star and is a great navigational tool.

          Arctic and Antarctic basically just mean north and south.

          • adjectivenoun@lemmy.worldEnglish
            22·
            1 天前

            Would they have called that constellation Ursa Major if not for the presence of bears in that direction? Maybe the constellation naming was like, “don’t go too far towards bear country if you don’t want to deal with bears that think of humans as food.” “Bears this way. Bears ahead.”

            • Earthwormjim91@lemmy.worldEnglish
              14·
              1 天前

              There were bears all over Europe. They were a huge part of Greek and Roman mythology. They didn’t know anything about polar bears at the time.

              Bears have been important in many cultures, and Ursa Major is depicted as a bear in many non-Greek cultures as well, going back to prehistory.

              Many North American indigenous tribes depict it as a bear, long before European contact. Same with pre-Islamic Arabian cultures.

            • dogslayeggs@lemmy.worldEnglish
              5·
              1 天前

              It was named because the constellation looks like a bear, not because it pointed to where bears were. Even Native Americans called that constellation a bear, and they had bears south of them.

  • Jay@lemmy.caEnglish
    96·
    1 天前

    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.

    • DaGreenGobbo@feddit.ukEnglish
      21·
      1 天前

      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

      • begrudgedcarfolk@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        1·
        13 小时前

        Third sentence of the first paragraph mentions sexual dimorphism, at least in the English version of the page. Mentioned a few more places too, so it’s still there.

        Didn’t know that was a thing, that’s pretty cool!

        • DaGreenGobbo@feddit.ukEnglish
          1·
          12 小时前

          I mean previously it stated that these were the two most dimorphic species. I’m guessing that due to the variance in body weight of the animals, it’s not that easy to say that they are more dimorphic than other species, because that depends upon the variable body mass of the animals. But it’s certainly a notable quality of polar bears and elephant seals that there can be such a huge difference, even if that difference grows and shrinks at different times of year.

    • CosmoNova@lemmy.worldEnglish
      9·
      1 天前

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

      • Jay@lemmy.caEnglish
        15·
        1 天前

        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.

        • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.worldEnglish
          6·
          1 天前

          Just let it happen. If someone is looking at my stat sheet Im not going to complain if they say I can run 100 meters as fast as Bolt did in the Olympics. *limps to the kitchen…

    • TrackenDaKracken@lemmy.worldEnglish
      7·
      1 天前

      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.

      • Jay@lemmy.caEnglish
        8·
        1 天前

        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.

        • kolmaskommentoija@sopuli.xyzEnglish
          2·
          11 小时前

          They just seem to calmly creep where you are, and then start eating you, really. Their normal prey is seals etc., that do not fight back but flee, so their hunting tactic is to be sneaky, on top of not really having any natural predators (the no fear -reason). And you are just a thin seal, that does not know how to flee under the ice.

          • Jay@lemmy.caEnglish
            1·
            10 小时前

            Pretty much, if you let them know you’re there you’re just making more work for yourself when you gotta chase them down.

            I prefer quick meals too over having to waste time and effort lol! I’d just prefer to stay off the menu.

  • Not_Dav3@lemmy.worldEnglish
    82·
    2 天前

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

    • Rezurektme@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      10 小时前

      If it’s brown, also say good night because a grizzly will still fuck your shit up no matter what you do.

    • Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      3·
      23 小时前

      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.

      • Rcklsabndn@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        3·
        15 小时前

        Your interest Un-funness saved your ass that one time you wandered into a bear party after misunderstanding an advertising flyer.

    • boonhet@lemmy.zipEnglish
      31·
      1 天前

      The “say” makes it three syllables while the others are two so it doesn’t flow

      “if it’s white, good night” flows better and it’s more to the point since it’s shorter anyway

  • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.worldEnglish
    401·
    1 天前

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

    Arctic = bears are here

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

    • Earthwormjim91@lemmy.worldEnglish
      21·
      1 天前

      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.

    • jaybone@lemmy.zipEnglish
      61·
      1 天前

      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.

      • timochka@lemmy.zipEnglish
        5·
        1 天前

        It’s the place opposite /ursa major/ (the great bear constellation, in the northern sky.) The name has nothing to do with actual bears (that’s just good luck.)

      • save_the_humans@leminal.spaceEnglish
        5·
        1 天前

        I saw this before somewhere and a commenter said they didn’t actually know if there were bears or not in these places when they named them. This had more to do with the constellation Ursa (bear) major/minor (north star). But works out to being a nice mnemonic.

    • ThatWeirdGuy1001@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      1 天前

      So did the Greeks traverse the whole planet? Like the idea isn’t too far fetched but it’s just weird to think about Mediterraneans traveling to the arctics

        • BorgDrone@feddit.nlEnglish
          65·
          17 小时前

          162cm is average for women where you live with the other gnomes in your mushroom village?

              • xav@programming.devEnglish
                4·
                11 小时前

                Nope.

                The CDC NHANES figure for adult women in the United States is 161.3 cm (5 ft 3.5 in). That’s approximately the global average. Dutch women, at 170.4 cm, are the tallest national average on record.

                Ok we get it you are Dutch and so on average taller than everybody else. But no need to be so dismissive with that attitude.

          • musicalphysics@discuss.onlineEnglish
            22·
            11 小时前

            You’re an ass.

            Average Female Heights Worldwide Region Average Female Height Northern Africa 5 feet 3 inches Eastern Africa 5 feet 2 inches Western Africa 5 feet 3 inches Central Africa 5 feet 2 inches Southern Africa 5 feet 3 inches North America 5 feet 4 inches South America 5 feet 3 inches Central America 5 feet 1 inch Caribbean 5 feet 3 inches East Asia 5 feet 4 inches Western Asia 5 feet 3 inches Southeast Asia 5 feet 1 inch Central Asia 5 feet 3 inches South Asia 5 feet 1 inch Eastern Europe 5 feet 5 inches Western Europe 5 feet 5 inches Northern Europe 5 feet 4 inches Southern Europe 5 feet 4 inches Australia and New Zealand 5 feet 5 inches Micronesia 5 feet 3 inches Polynesia 5 feet 5 inches Melanesia 5 feet 2 inches

  • huquad@lemmy.mlEnglish
    23·
    1 天前

    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