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Christopher Robin's
Little Trivia Page
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Winnie-the-Pooh and his friends have long since become icons of popular culture.
This wry contribution, coming from the pen of Tom K. Ryan (Tumbleweeds.com and,
originally, King Features Syndicate), shows
that Limpid Lizard and Little Pigeon (coincidentally, of the Poohawk tribe) are more than familiar with the Bear of Very Little Brain himself.
Ryan's connection between the original Teddy Bear, Pooh, Goldilocks (another pop icon) and Real Bears has inspired
this little page of trivia about bears..
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This is a photo of the largest Kodiak bear ever shot and mounted. It is on display at the J.C. Penney store in Anchorage, Alaska. According
to the source of the original photograph, this bear
originally weighed in at 1900 lbs., and stands over 10 feet tall
on its hind legs.
The Kodiak bear is a subspecies of the brown bear,
which ranges from Europe through Asia and into North America. (Another subspecies is the famous grizzly bear
of North America.) The brown bear is the archetype
of most "Teddy Bears". Polar bears
(which range along the Arctic coasts of northern countries) and American black
bears, along with the related giant
panda, are the other obvious archetypes.
Sources vary as to whether the Kodiak bear or the polar bear is the largest bear. According to the Microsoft Encarta 98 (article, "Bear"), the
Kodiak bear can reach a weight of 780 kg (1700 lb) and a height (when standing on its hind legs) of 3 m (10 ft).
The more typical weight for brown bears is 440 kg (970 lb). However, the polar bear is longer than other bears.
Supposedly (ibid., article "Polar
Bear"), the largest wild bears ever weighed -- more than 800 kg (more than 1800 lb) -- have been polar bears.
However, most male polar bears weigh an average of about 350 kg (about 880 lb), and most females weigh about 250
kg (550 lb).
Obviously, the Kodiak on display in Anchorage is said to be heavier (by up to 100 pounds) than any polar bear yet
weighed in the wild. Also, the Kodiak bear (and even the brown bear generally) appears to be heavier on average
than the polar bear. Whatever the case, both bears reign as the largest land carnivores now living. However, the
famous cave bear (now extinct), which once ranged through Eurasia and North America, was even larger than the Kodiak
bear.Interestingly enough, Winnie-the-Pooh's ultimate
inspiration was not a brown bear or even a male bear, but a
female black bear named Winnie. Her story is told in Ann
Thwaite's autobiography of A.A. Milne (pp. 283-285) and on the Web
(one excellent place being a page on
Justin Valentin's
site). Alan Milne had two different and typically whimsical
explanations of his own, in the Introduction to Winnie-the
Pooh and in the first story of the book. (The reader is invited
to discover all these stories for himself.) |
Scientific classification: Bears make up the
family Ursidae. The polar bear is classified as Ursus maritimus; the brown bear as Ursus arctos;
the American black bear as Ursus americanus;
the Asiatic black bear as Ursus thibetanus;
the sun bear as Helarctos malayanus,
although some sources classify it as Ursus malayanus;
the sloth bear as Melursus ursinus,
although some sources classify it as Ursus ursinus;
and the spectacled bear as Tremarctos ornatus.
"Bear," Microsoft Encarta 98 Encyclopedia. Copyright © 1993-1997 Microsoft Corporation. All rights
reserved. |
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| Updated December 27, 2011 |
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