What is the largest prey that any of the Brown Bears could kill/has killed?

[Sully]

(05-21-2022, 03:44 AM)LonePredator Wrote:

(05-21-2022, 03:38 AM)Sully Wrote:

(04-18-2022, 06:36 PM)LonePredator Wrote:

(02-04-2022, 11:19 PM)Sully Wrote: My guess would be bison (bigger than moose) though I suppose its possible a brown bear some time somewhere has killed a large marine mammal in the same way polar bears do beluga whales.

Do you think a Polar Bear could survive on an almost entirely herbivorous diet like Brown Bears?

I doubt it

I remember I read somewhere that Polar Bears and Brown Bears are extremely closely related. As far as I remember, they produce healthy and fertile offspring unlike all the big cat hybrids who have so many health problems and usually are infertile.

If they are still so closely related, it could make sense that Polar Bears still have a similar digestive tract like Brown Bears and so it may allow Polar Bears to live on a purely herbivorous diet just like Brown Bears live.

Competitive exclusion principle dictates they cant occupy the same niche as brown bears without one being extirpated, and with brown bears being more suited to gaining nutrients from vegetation (and needing less to survive) my guess would be polar bears lose out. They would have to still supplement much of their diet with meat, and inland this would be carrion as hunting prey like caribou seems unlikely. It could happen, and polar bears have survived warm periods before, but I would not expect them to become totally brown bear like in their ecology. Reply