Talk:Bear

Wiki Education assignment: Principles of Biology 2

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 28 January 2025 and 9 May 2025. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Pinktulip13 (article contribs). Peer reviewers: Bipdawg.

— Assignment last updated by Wikiuser5256 (talk) 02:14, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

Grizzly bear?

As a North American visitor to this page, I am mystified by the lack of information about grizzly bears, and in particular about the distinction between black bears and grizzlies. They are the two main categories of bear over here, and a grizzly is a quite distinct animal from a black bear. It is much larger, and as far as I understand, does not climb trees. Perhaps there doesn't need to be too much detail about grizzlies in this article, but having them (as it appears) lumped in with black bears doesn't make sense. 24.87.154.112 (talk) 16:54, 1 June 2025 (UTC)

Grizzlies are a subspecies of brown bears. This article doesn't discuss most sub-species. I have added links to several sub-species to the See Also section. — Lentower (talk) 18:04, 9 January 2026 (UTC)

Reverted (i.e. Undone) by Chiswick Chap (talk · contribs). Perhaps they will find another way to meet a reasonable request from a person, who is just a reader/user of WP, not an editor. — Lentower (talk) 16:53, 10 January 2026 (UTC)

I wasn't meeting any request, just removing a grossly non-canonical structure from a tidy article. It isn't usual for a genus article to discuss subspecies, let alone to list them, but we could certainly drop in a brief mention of griz,lies somewhere, decently cited. Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:31, 10 January 2026 (UTC)

Actually the article did already mention grizzlies a few times, but perhaps rather too quietly for North American visitors, whose expectations may be high for the reason given by the IP. We are rather more constrained here, but I've added a couple more mentions. Hope this helps. Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:55, 10 January 2026 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 28 October 2025

At the beginning of communication it says "Tongue-clicking, grunting or chuffing many be made in cordial situations," I'm not sure if I'm correct on this but I think the word "many" should be changed to "may" to be grammatically correct, as it seems to sound more correct in the context, "Tongue-clicking, grunting or chuffing may be made in cordial situations". GreatScottGordanFreeman (talk) 01:54, 28 October 2025 (UTC)

 Done x2step (lets talk 💌) 02:09, 28 October 2025 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 8 February 2026

Reference number 47 refers to a book asserting that polar bears grow hair on the pads of their paws. Specifically pads. This is false. They have considerable hair growth on the paws that protects against heat loss, but the pads themselves do not grow hair. See: <ref>https://doi.org/10.1098/rsif.2022.0466 <ref> ~2026-85114-8 (talk) 13:55, 8 February 2026 (UTC)

Fixed, thank you. Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:26, 8 February 2026 (UTC)

Distribution Map

Should the distribution map in the infobox be changed? It's well sourced using data from the IUCN site, but the IUCN maps include the locations of ursids that have gone extinct, like the brown bear in North Africa and much of Europe . While not shown on the map, the IUCN site also lists locations where the brown bear has not been present for thousands of years, like the UK, so it appears to only be "recent" extinctions. The map under "Distribution and habitat" only depicts the range of extant populations. It might be a good idea to either swap it for a map of modern ranges, or at least include some information in the caption on how the current map includes "recently extinct" (by the IUCN's standard's, since that's where the data is from). ~2026-27035-21 (talk) 02:18, 4 May 2026 (UTC)

Edited caption. Chiswick Chap (talk) 04:21, 4 May 2026 (UTC)

"Bears in literature" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect Bears in literature has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2026 May 21 § Bears in mythology and literature until a consensus is reached. 𝔅𝔦𝔰-𝔖𝔢𝔯𝔧𝔢𝔱𝔞? 15:41, 21 May 2026 (UTC)