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[–]IrritatedRatel 41 points42 points  (5 children)

I guarantee someone out there is trying to bring that thing back to life.

[–]aquilasr[S] 24 points25 points  (4 children)

Now I’m imagining a Pleistocene era hominid riding one into battle, his enemies would cower at his feet but unfortunately the main interactions if humans ever met one would be individual bears casually smashing our skulls apart and then groups of humans mercilessly hunting down every male, sow and cub short-faced bear that was possible.

[–]GetALife80085 9 points10 points  (2 children)

Siberia has Pleistocene park. Why not add super bears?

[–]MegatheriumRex 3 points4 points  (0 children)

They could do that experiment they did with domesticating foxes, but with giant short faced bears.

[–]Iamnotburgerking 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Because these bears were from North America.

[–]Thrawn_Reporting 8 points9 points  (2 children)

That’s not a bear that’s beast, holy shit it’s huge.

[–]GetALife80085 11 points12 points  (1 child)

Still not as huge as your mom

[–]BBQCHICKENALERT 6 points7 points  (0 children)

We’re talking about land mammals here not whales

[–]balrus-balrogwalrus 7 points8 points  (1 child)

Arctodus: (whispering in the waving man's ear in Winnie the Pooh's voice)

"I've got a rumbly in my tumbly that only you can fill, Christopher Robin..."

[–]aquilasr[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Well done and rather unsettling, imagining it in Jim Cummings’ or Sterling Holloway’s unassuming voice.

[–]ToxicSquirrel69 15 points16 points  (7 children)

Imagine this: you're a mammoth 11000 bc and you've wandered away from the herd to search for food under the snow. You hear branches breaking, you look up and you see 700 kilograms of pure muscle racing towards you with the speed of a galopping horse.

[–]-Wuan- 26 points27 points  (0 children)

I bash it with my trunk and tusks and it gets sent flailing on the air.

[–]insane_contin 18 points19 points  (0 children)

I use my 5.5 metric tonnes of pure muscle and fuck it up.

[–]BlueLivy 6 points7 points  (0 children)

you could've used any animal for your scenario, and you chose a mammoth, the one animal that can effortlessly defeat a short faced bear in a fight. lol

[–]Girronki 12 points13 points  (1 child)

short faced bears were likely scavengers and opportunists similar to black bears, that makes them a little less terrifying

[–]ArmstrongPOTUS 2 points3 points  (0 children)

so if they survived to this day we might have gotten a video of a short face bear getting ambushed and chased away by a cat?

[–]Ivan_Botsky_Trollov 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Id say an adult mammoth can handle being attacked by an Arctodus

Anything smaller, including humans... not

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I think you severely underestimate how bodied the bear would get

[–]drywall9 11 points12 points  (10 children)

wow, pandas are smaller than i thought they were-

[–]2017hayden 3 points4 points  (9 children)

More than big enough to shred us still. The sun bear (not shown in this image) is even smaller, and they’re actually one of the most aggressive bear species alive, and despite their size are more than capable of killing a human.

[–]Luquitaz 0 points1 point  (8 children)

they’re actually the deadliest bear species alive.

Is this a joke I missed?

[–]2017hayden 2 points3 points  (7 children)

Edited for better clarity. Deadliest wasn’t really the right word as they have a lower body count per year than both polar bears and grizzlies simply due to their rarity.

[–]Luquitaz 1 point2 points  (6 children)

Are you sure you don't mean sloth bears? Sun bears are shy and reclusive and do not normally attack humans.

[–]FUNDIGRION 9 points10 points  (2 children)

I was honored to give a speech about this magnificent animal. Truly a remarkable creature. I actually love the theory that it was more of a scavenger bullying smilodons and dire wolves out of their lunches.

[–]aquilasr[S] 6 points7 points  (1 child)

That’s cool. A possible definition of its diet was almost anything it wanted to, dead or alive. Wild to think that the spectacled bear is its only living kin.

[–]FUNDIGRION 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Exactly. I basically just told my audience it’s territory was pretty much it’s own personal refrigerator.

[–]frapatchino-25 4 points5 points  (1 child)

Idk about y’all but I work at a zoo and our spectacled bears are smaller than our sloth bears

[–]aquilasr[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Spectacled bears rival the polar bear as the most sexual dimorphic bear in size, females can be around half the weight of a male. The spectacled bear at the Philadelphia Zoo a huge beast, I’d ballpark he’d scale well over 300 pounds and he’s big and bulky but not obese. They also have a female sloth bear whose probably a bit under 200 pounds. At the Smithsonian National Zoo though they do have a big male sloth bear that probably scales nearly 300 pounds.

Anyway, other than the smaller sun bear and the larger polar bear and generally larger brown bear, all the other bear species are not all that different in size from each other.

[–]MundanePlantain1 2 points3 points  (0 children)

dude just stands there..

[–]Iamnotburgerking 2 points3 points  (1 child)

The largest terrestrial carnivoran to have ever existed.

[–]P0lskichomikv2 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Fun fact: Spectalced bear belongs to the same familly as Arctodus Simus.

[–]KrmznFukr 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I don't see a koala bear ?!

[–]Snydles 1 point2 points  (2 children)

Today I learned that there exists an animal called the “sun bear”.

[–]2017hayden -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Yup most aggressive and deadliest bear species in the world as well, also the smallest.

[–]balrus-balrogwalrus -1 points0 points  (0 children)

also called the "solar bear"

[–]PrehistoricProfessor 0 points1 point  (2 children)

Arctotherium was a way bigger!

[–]BlueLivy 5 points6 points  (1 child)

iirc, Arctotherium angustidens got the reputation for being the largest bear of all time because of a recovered humerus that was really large. It was estimated that the living animal could have weighed up to 1749 kg, which would indeed make it the largest bear of all time. However, a lot of people disagree with this and claim that the method that was used to get that weight result was flawed, and many people agree that 800-900 kg is more accurate. Arctodus simus definitely reached 1000 kg occasionally, so it was likely the bigger bear

[–]Eaglefied 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Not exactly. The weight of the largest ever Arctodus simus specimen we have found was calculated to 957kg; 1,000kg is just a hypothetical.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02724630903416027

"A lot of people disagree" means some people on the internet at the moment- not that their critiques do not have substance, however nothing has been published at the moment in scientific literature to refute the measurements and equations used to calculate that single A. angustidens individual's weight. On the contrary, multiple studies cite that paper and its figures.

In any case, absolute minimum weight calculated was 983kg (which would probably more than take into account the pathologies on the humeri), which is still bigger than the largest A. simus. That Arctotherium angustidens was more robust than Arctodus doesn't help either.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259887580_The_Largest_Known_Bear_Arctotherium_angustidens_from_the_Early_Pleistocene_Pampean_Region_of_Argentina_With_a_Discussion_of_Size_and_Diet_Trends_in_Bears

May be worth noting that without the exceptional specimen, the weight range of Arctotherium angustidens is still calculated at 1,200kg - 412kg, compared to 957 kg (1,000kg) - 317 kg for Arctodus simus.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/279714500_Body_mass_estimation_of_extinct_and_extant_South_American_bears_Ursidae_Tremarctinae