The brown bear (Ursus arctos) is a large bear Bears are mammals of the family Ursidae. Bears are classified as caniforms, or doglike carnivorans, with the pinnipeds being their closest living relatives. Although there are only eight living species of bear, they are widespread, appearing in a wide variety of habitats throughout the Northern Hemisphere and partially in the Southern Hemisphere distributed across much of northern Eurasia Eurasia is a large landmass covering about 52,990,000 km2 or about 10.6% of the Earth's surface (36.2% of the land area) located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. Sometimes considered a single continent, Eurasia comprises the traditional continents of Europe and Asia (with Eurasia being a portmanteau of the two), concepts which and North America North America is the northern continent of the Americas, situated in the Earth's northern hemisphere and in the western hemisphere. It is bordered on the north by the Arctic Ocean, on the east by the North Atlantic Ocean, on the southeast by the Caribbean Sea, and on the west by the North Pacific Ocean; South America lies to the southeast. It can weigh from 300 to 780 kilograms (660 to 1720 lbs) and its largest subspecies, the Kodiak Bear, rivals the polar bear The polar bear is a bear native largely within the Arctic circle encompassing the Arctic Ocean, its surrounding seas and surrounding land masses. It is the world's largest land carnivore and also the largest bear, together with the omnivorous Kodiak bear, which is approximately the same size. An adult male weighs around 350–680 kg (770–1,500 as the largest member of the bear family[2] and as the largest land-based predator.[3]

There are several recognized subspecies within the brown bear species. In North America, two types are generally recognized, the coastal brown bear and the inland grizzly, and the two types could broadly define all brown bear subspecies. Grizzlies weigh as little as 350 lb (159 kg) in Yukon The territory was created in 1898 as the Yukon Territory. The federal government's most recent update of the Yukon Act in 2003 confirmed "Yukon", rather than "Yukon Territory", as the current usage standard, while a brown bear, living on a steady, nutritious diet of spawning salmon Salmon is the common name for several species of the family Salmonidae. Several other fish in the family are called trout; the difference is often said to be that salmon migrate and trout are resident, a distinction that holds true for the Salmo genus. Salmon live along the coasts of both the North Atlantic and Pacific Oceans (approximately a, from Coastal Alaska and Russia can weigh 1500 lb (682 kg). The exact number of overall brown subspecies remains in debate.

While the brown bear's range has shrunk, and it has faced local extinctions, it remains listed as a least concern Least Concern is an IUCN category assigned to extant species or lower taxa which have been evaluated but do not qualify for any other category. As such they do not qualify as threatened, Near Threatened, or (prior to 2001) Conservation Dependent. Many common species such as the Rock Pigeon, Common Juniper, Human, Snail Kite, Sacred Kingfisher and species by the IUCN The International Union for Conservation of Nature is an international organization dedicated to natural resource conservation. The stated goal of the organization is to help the world find pragmatic solutions to the most pressing environment and development challenges. The group publishes a "Red List" compiling information from a, with a total population of approximately 200,000. Its principal range countries are Russia, the United States (mostly in Alaska Alaska was purchased from the Russian Empire on March 30, 1867, for $7.2 million at about two cents per acre . The land went through several administrative changes before becoming an organized territory on May 11, 1912, and the 49th state of the U.S. on January 3, 1959), Canada, the Carpathian The Carpathian Mountains or Carpathians are a range of mountains forming an arc roughly 1,500 km long across Central and Eastern Europe, making them the largest mountain range in Europe. They provide the habitat for the largest European populations of brown bears, wolves, chamois and lynxes, with the highest concentration in Romania, as well as region (especially Romania), and Finland where it is the national animal. The brown bear is the most widely distributed of all bears.

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Naming and etymology

The brown bear is sometimes referred to as the bruin, from Middle English Middle English is the name given by historical linguists to the diverse forms of the English language in use between the late 11th century and about 1470, when the Chancery Standard, a form of London-based English, began to become widespread, a process aided by the introduction of the printing press into England by William Caxton in the late 1470s, based on the name of the bear in History of Reynard the Fox The Reynard cycle is a literary cycle of allegorical French, Dutch, English, and German fables largely concerned with Reynard, an anthropomorphic red fox and trickster figure, translated by William Caxton William Caxton was an English merchant, diplomat, writer and printer. As far as is known, he was the first English person to work as a printer and the first to introduce a printing press into England. He was also the first English retailer of printed books (his London contemporaries were all Dutch, German or French), from Middle Dutch Middle Dutch is a collective name for a number of closely related West Germanic dialects which were spoken and written between 1150 and 1500. There was at that time as yet no overarching standard language, but they were all mutually intelligible bruun or bruyn, meaning brown Brown is a color term, denoting a range of composite colors produced by a mixture of orange, red, rose, or yellow with black or gray. The term is from Old English brún, in origin for any dusky or dark shade of color. The Common Germanic adjective *brûnoz, *brûnâ meant both dark colors and a glistening or shining quality, whence burnish. The (the color).[4] During the Old west The American Old West comprises the history, geography, peoples, lore, and cultural expression of life in the Western United States, most often referring to the period of the latter half of the 19th century, between the American Civil War and the end of the century. After the eighteenth century and the push beyond the Appalachian Mountains, the, the grizzly was termed "Old Ephraim" and sometimes as "Moccasin Joe".[5]

Taxonomy and evolution

Brown bears are thought to have evolved from Ursus etruscus. The oldest fossils occur in China from about 0.5 million years ago In astronomy, geology, and paleontology, mya or "m.y.a." is an abbreviation for "million years ago". Like the related unit bya, mya is traditionally written in lower case. The deprecated abbreviation m.yr. is still used informally to refer to remote time intervals. They entered Europe about 250,000 years ago, and North Africa shortly after. Brown bear remains from the Pleistocene period are common in the British Isles 1 These are the official languages of the eight jurisdictions within the British Isles. Other languages are spoken, including several other native languages and dialects that have regional or special status, where it is thought they outcompeted cave bears The Cave Bear was a species of bear which lived in Europe during the Pleistocene and became extinct at the beginning of the Last Glacial Maximum about 27,500 years ago. Both the name Cave Bear and the scientific name spelaeus derive from the fact that fossils of this species were mostly found in caves, indicating that this species spent more time. The species entered Alaska 100,000 years ago, though they did not move south until 13,000 years ago.[6] It is thought that brown bears were unable to migrate south until the extinction of the much larger Arctodus simus Arctodus simus, also known as the giant short-faced bear, is an extinct species of bear. The genus Arctodus is known as the short-faced or bulldog bears. It was native to prehistoric North America from about 800 thousand years ago, and became extinct about 12,500 years ago. Males from the Yukon region - the largest representatives of the species -.[7] Several paleontologists suggest the possibility of two separate brown bear migrations: grizzlies are thought to stem from narrow-skulled bears which migrated from northern Siberia to central Alaska and the rest of the continent, while Kodiak bears descend from broad-skulled bears from Kamchatka which colonised the Alaskan peninsula. Brown bear fossils discovered in Ontario, Ohio, Kentucky and Labrador show that the species occurred farther east than indicated in historic records.[6]

Subspecies

There is little agreement on classification of brown bears. Some systems have proposed as many as 90 sub-species, while recent DNA analysis has identified as few as five clades.[8] DNA analysis recently revealed that the identified subspecies of brown bears, both Eurasian and North American, are genetically quite homogeneous, and that their genetic phylogeography Phylogeography is the study of the historical processes that may be responsible for the contemporary geographic distributions of individuals. This is accomplished by considering the geographic distribution of individuals in light of the patterns associated with a gene genealogy does not correspond to their traditional taxonomy.[9] As of 2005, 16 subspecies have been recognised.[10] The subspecies have been listed as follows:

Brown Bear Sub-species
Sub-Species Name Image Distribution Description
Ursus arctos arctos – Eurasian Brown Bear The Eurasian Brown Bear is a subspecies of the brown bear (Ursus arctos), and found across northern Eurasia. The brown bear is also known as the "common brown bear", and colloquially by many other names Europe, Caucasus, Siberia (except the east) and Mongolia[11] A predominantely dark coloured (rarely light coloured), moderately sized subspecies with dark claws. Animals occurring in Siberia are larger than their European counterparts, as they are hunted less[11]
Ursus arctos alascensis
Ursus arctos beringianus – Kamchatka Brown Bear (or "Far Eastern brown bear") Kamchatka Peninsula The Kamchatka Peninsula is a 1,250-kilometer long peninsula in the Russian Far East, with an area of 472,300 km2 (182,400 sq mi). It lies between the Pacific Ocean to the east and the Sea of Okhotsk to the west. Immediately offshore along the Pacific coast of the peninsula runs the 10,500-metre (34,400 ft) deep Kuril-Kamchatka Trench and Paramushir Island[11] A very large, dark coloured form. Light coloured forms are encountered less than in European-Siberian subspecies. Claws are dark.[11] Thought to be the ancestor of U. a. middendorffi.[6]
Ursus arctos californicus – California Golden Bear (extinct)
Ursus arctos collaris – East Siberian Brown Bear East Siberia Siberia , is a vast region, constituting almost all of Northern Asia and currently the massive central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, as it was in the USSR from its beginning, and the Russian Empire since the 16th century from the Yenisei River Yenisei , also written as Yenisey, is the greatest river system flowing to the Arctic Ocean. Rising in Mongolia, it follows a northerly course to the Yenisei Gulf in the Kara Sea, draining a large part of central Siberia, the longest stream following the Yenisei-Angara-Selenga-Ider to the Altai Mountains The Altai Mountains are a mountain range in central Asia, where Russia, China, Mongolia and Kazakhstan come together, and where the rivers Irtysh and Ob have their sources. The Altai Mountains are known as the original locus of the speakers of Turkic as well as other members of the proposed Altaic language group. The northwest end of the range is. Also occurs in northern Mongolia A predominantly dark form intermediate in size between U. a. arctos and U. a. beringianus, with a proportionately larger skull[11]
Ursus arctos crowtheri – Atlas Bear The Atlas Bear is an extinct subspecies of the Brown Bear, which is sometimes classified as a distinct species (extinct)
Ursus arctos dalli
Ursus arctos horribilis – Grizzly Bear The grizzly bear , also known as the silvertip bear, is a subspecies of brown bear (Ursus arctos) that generally lives in the uplands of western North America. This subspecies is thought to descend from Ussuri brown bears which crossed to Alaska from Eastern Russia 100,000 years ago, though they did not move south until 13,000 years ago Western Canada Western Canada, also referred to as the Western provinces and commonly as the West, is a region of Canada generally including all parts of Canada west of the province of Ontario. The West is considered by many to be a cultural region with an identity separate from that of the rest of Canada. The special cultural, political, and economic, Alaska Alaska was purchased from the Russian Empire on March 30, 1867, for $7.2 million at about two cents per acre . The land went through several administrative changes before becoming an organized territory on May 11, 1912, and the 49th state of the U.S. on January 3, 1959, and the Northwestern United States A medium to dark brown coat with gray, or "grizzled" tips on the fur. Smaller than the coastal bear, typically weighing up to 800 lbs (364 kg) in inland areas, with bears in the Yukon region The territory was created in 1898 as the Yukon Territory. The federal government's most recent update of the Yukon Act in 2003 confirmed "Yukon", rather than "Yukon Territory", as the current usage standard weighing as little as 350 lbs (159 kg). Coastal bears may be nearly twice a mountain grizzly's weight.
Ursus arctos isabellinus – Himalayan Brown Bear Nepal Nepal (pronounced /nəˈpal/ nə-PAHL, /-pal/ -PAWL; Nepali: नेपाल [neˈpal] ), officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is located in the Himalayas and bordered to the north by the People's Republic of China, and to the south, east, and west by the Republic of India. With an area of 1, Pakistan Pakistan (Urdu pronunciation: [paːkɪsˈtaːn] ( listen)), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan (Urdu: اسلامی جمہوریہ پاکِستان) (also the Federation of Pakistan), is a country in South Asia. It has a 1,046-kilometre (650 mi) coastline along the Arabian Sea and Gulf of Oman in the south, is bordered by Afghanistan and, and Northern India North India is a loosely defined region in the northern part of India. The exact meaning of the term varies by usage. The dominant geographical features of North India are the Indo-Gangetic Plain and the Himalayas, which demarcate the region from Tibet and Central Asia. North India has been the historical center of the Maurya, Gupta, Mughal and Having a reddish-brown or sandy coat colour, this bear is smaller than most other brown bears found on the Asian Continent.
Ursus arctos lasiotus – Ussuri Brown Bear (or "Amur brown bear", "black grizzly" or "horse bear") Russia Russia (pronounced /ˈrʌʃə/ ; Russian: Россия, tr. Rossiya, pronounced [rɐˈsʲijə] ( listen)), also officially known as the Russian Federation (Russian: Российская Федерация, pronounced [rɐˈsʲijskəjə fʲɪdʲɪˈraʦəjə] ( listen)), is a state in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic,: Southern Kuril Islands The Kuril Islands or Kurile Islands in Russia's Sakhalin Oblast region, is a volcanic archipelago that stretches approximately 1,300 km (810 mi) northeast from Hokkaidō, Japan, to Kamchatka, Russia, separating the Sea of Okhotsk from the North Pacific Ocean. There are 56 islands and many more minor rocks, Sakhalin Sakhalin (Russian: Сахали́н, pronounced [səxɐˈlʲin]; also known as Kuye ；Japanese: Karafuto (樺太?) or Saharin (サハリン?)), also Saghalien, is a large elongated island in the North Pacific, lying between 45°50' and 54°24' N. It is part of Russia and is its largest island, administered as part of Sakhalin Oblast. The, Maritime territory, and the Ussuri The Ussuri River is a river in the east of Inner Manchuria and south of the Outer Manchuria (Russian Far East). It rises in the Sikhote-Alin range, flowing north, forming part of the Sino-Russian border based on the Sino-Russian Convention of Peking in 1860, until it joins the Amur River at Khabarovsk (48°26′N 134°59′E / 48.433°N 134.9/Amur The Amur River or Heilong Jiang (Chinese: 黑龙江), or Sahaliyan Ula (Manchu: ) is the world's ninth longest river, forming the border between the Russian Far East and Northeastern China river region south of the Stanovoy Range. China b. ^ Simple characterizations of the political structure since the 1980s are no longer possible: Northeastern Heilongjiang Heilongjiang (simplified Chinese: 黑龙江省; traditional Chinese: 黑龍江省; pinyin: Hēilóngjiāng Shěng; Postal map spelling: Heilungkiang; Manchu: Sahaliyan ula) is a province of the People's Republic of China located in the northeastern part of the country. "Heilongjiang" literally means Black Dragon River, which is the. Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south. The characters that make up Japan's name mean "sun-origin", which is why Japan is: Hokkaidō Hokkaidō (北海道?, literally "North Sea Circuit"), formerly known as Ezo, Yezo, Yeso, or Yesso, is Japan's second largest island and the largest, northernmost of its 47 prefectural-level subdivisions. The Tsugaru Strait separates Hokkaidō from Honshū, although the two islands are connected by the underwater Seikan Tunnel. The[11] Thought to be the ancestor of U. a. Horribilis.[6]
Ursus arctos middendorffi – Kodiak Bear Kodiak, Afognak, Shuyak Islands (Alaska Alaska was purchased from the Russian Empire on March 30, 1867, for $7.2 million at about two cents per acre . The land went through several administrative changes before becoming an organized territory on May 11, 1912, and the 49th state of the U.S. on January 3, 1959) The largest subspecies of brown bear with other coastal brown bears reaching as big.
Ursus arctos pruinosus – Tibetan Blue Bear Western China and Tibet.[11] A moderately sized subspecies with long and shaggy fur. Both dark and light variants are encountered, with intermediate colours predominating. The fur around the neck is light, and forms a "collar". The skull is distinguished its relatively flattened choanae, an arch-like curve of the molar row and large teeth[11]
Ursus arctos sitkensis Baranof Island Baranof Island, also sometimes called Baranov Island, Shee or Sitka Island, is an island in the northern Alexander Archipelago in the Alaska Panhandle, in Alaska. The name Baranof was given in 1805 by Imperial Russian Navy captain U. F. Lisianski to honor Alexander Andreyevich Baranov. It was called Sheet’-ká X'áat'l by the native Tlingit Appears to be more closely related to the polar bear The polar bear is a bear native largely within the Arctic circle encompassing the Arctic Ocean, its surrounding seas and surrounding land masses. It is the world's largest land carnivore and also the largest bear, together with the omnivorous Kodiak bear, which is approximately the same size. An adult male weighs around 350–680 kg (770–1,500 than to other brown bears.[9] This species is called "clade I" by Waits, et al., and is part of the subspecies identified as U. a. sitkensis, by Hall and as U. a. dalli by Kurtén.
Ursus arctos stikeenensis
Ursus arctos syriacus – Syrian Brown Bear Occurs in the Trans-Caucasus, Syria, Iraq, Asia Minor, Iran, Afghanistan, western Himalayas and the Pamir-Alai and Tien Shan mountains.[11] A light coloured moderate to small sized subspecies with light claws[11]

Hybrids

Main article: Grizzly–polar bear hybrid

A grizzly–polar bear hybrid (known as a Pizzly Bear or Grolar bear) is a rare ursid hybrid resulting from a union of a brown bear and a polar bear. It has occurred both in captivity and in the wild. In 2006, the occurrence of this hybrid in nature was confirmed by testing the DNA Deoxyribonucleic acid ( /diːˌɒksɨˌraɪbɵ.nuːˈkleɪ.ɪk ˈæsɪd/ (help·info)) (DNA) is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms and some viruses. The main role of DNA molecules is the long-term storage of information. DNA is often compared to a set of of a strange-looking bear that had been shot in the Canadian The land occupied by Canada was inhabited for millennia by various groups of Aboriginal peoples. Beginning in the late 15th century, British and French expeditions explored, and later settled, along the Atlantic coast. France ceded nearly all of its colonies in North America in 1763 after the Seven Years' War. In 1867, with the union of three arctic The Arctic is the region around the Earth's North Pole, opposite the Antarctic region around the South Pole. The Arctic includes the Arctic Ocean (which overlies the North Pole) and parts of Canada, Greenland (a territory of Denmark), Russia, the United States (Alaska), Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Finland.[12][13][14] Previously, the hybrid had been produced in zoos The term zoological garden refers to zoology, the study of animals, a term deriving from the Greek zōon and lógos (λóγος, "study"). The abbreviation "zoo" was first used of the London Zoological Gardens, which opened for scientific study in 1828 and to the public in 1847. The number of major animal collections open to and was considered a "cryptid" (a hypothesized animal for which there is no scientific proof of existence in the wild).

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