I knew they were big bears but not TWICE A HUMAN size! I didn’t even google this image for the polar bear I wanted to see how big a black bear is.
guess I’m never going to Antarctica!
I knew they were big bears but not TWICE A HUMAN size! I didn’t even google this image for the polar bear I wanted to see how big a black bear is.
guess I’m never going to Antarctica!
Because the name actually doesn’t have anything to do with real bears.
It was directional about the constellation Ursa Major (which in Greek is Arktos Megale).
Ursa Major is a helpful navigational constellation due to containing the North Star.
Arctic and Antarctic basically just mean north and south.
Would they have called that constellation Ursa Major if not for the presence of bears in that direction? Maybe the constellation naming was like, “don’t go too far towards bear country if you don’t want to deal with bears that think of humans as food.” “Bears this way. Bears ahead.”