Because a bear can stand up on its hindlegs, and because some bears are pretty huge, indeed, all kinds of exaggerated tales have sprung up about them. There are legends about great hunters who fought with or killed giant bears.

The bear family does include some pretty big fellows. The largest of all flesh-eating animals are certain bears. A lion, for example, seldom weighs as much as 230 kilograms. The biggest tiger may weigh 270 kilograms. But a good-sized polar bear or grizzly bear may get up to as much as 400 or 450 kilograms.

The biggest of all bears are the Alaskan brown bears. Some of the males weigh over 680 kilograms and when standing up they may be three meters tall. That’s a lot of bear! And just to give you the other end of the picture, there are bears (the Malaysian bear) that weigh less than 45 kilograms when full-grown.

There are two curious ideas that people sometimes have about bears. One is that they are awkward or clumsy, and the other is that they are stupid. Neither is true. A bear seems clumsy because of the peculiar way he walks. Bears are flat-footed, which means the heel of the foot rests on the ground like a man’s.

When a bear walks, he moves both legs on one side of the body forward at the same time. So he seems to have a rolling motion. But don’t let that fool you. A bear galloping along on all fours can beat any human runner!

Because bears seem so slow and awkward, people imagine that they’re not very bright. But ask any zoo keeper and he’ll tell you the bear is among the cleverest and most intelligent of animals. Besides, in Europe, bears are often trained to perform amazing tricks in the circus.

In North America, there are four distinct types of bears: the black bear, the grizzly bear, the Alaska brown bear, and the polar bear. Of these, the grizzly bear is the toughest. In fact, it’s the most dangerous American mammal. In olden days, the Indians considered it one of the greatest enemies, and the warrior who was able to kill a grizzly bear was regarded as a great brave!