brown bear: Quick Facts

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Last updated

Oct. 7, 2026

Facts

Also Known As	Ursus arctos

Photos and Videos

Illustration of a brown bear (Ursus arctos) standing upright on its hind legs, showing its thick brown fur and large size, with a scale bar indicating 30 centimeters or 12 inches for reference.

A Eurasian brown bear (Ursus arctos) partially submerged and swimming in greenish water, surrounded by large rocks at a zoo.

World map showing the geographic ranges of the eight bear species, each marked in a different color. The American black bear is found across much of North America, the polar bear in Arctic regions, the brown bear across northern North America, Europe, and Asia, and the spectacled bear in a small area of northwestern South America. In Asia, the Asiatic black bear, sloth bear, sun bear, and giant panda have distinct, mostly non-overlapping ranges in the eastern and southern parts of the continent.

brown bear (Ursus arctos) in Alaska's Katmai Peninsula

Alaskan brown bear (Ursus) sitting upright on a large fallen tree trunk with a forested background.

Watch a wolf and bear interact in Russia's coniferous forests

Kamchatka brown bears and the annual salmon run

Protecting the endangered Burzyan honeybee in Russia

Know how the 2007 landslide of Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula affected the geography of the area and the native brown bears

Moose vs. bear: Survival in Russia's harsh winter

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