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Except it’s nothing to do with that and comes from the Arctic being marked by Ursa Minor & Major in the Northern sky, and Antarctica being the opposite of that.
So there’s no sky bears in Antarctica then?
We have enough with the interdimensional bears. You cant take a shit in piece in here.
Sure but it’s also convenient that there are also no bears in Antarctica or as it shouldve been named Terra Australus but the Australian got that, really should’ve flipped the names when we had the chance.
Soon we can call them both Antarctica
Aww, I was annoyed but overall cheerful, then I read this and now I’m just sad.
I guess you have at least simplified my emotional spectrum, so … Thanks?
America wants them renamed the 52nd and 53rd states. 🙄
Petition to make the names less confusing by renaming the top one to “Bear” and the bottom one to “Twink”.
“Top” and “Bottom”.
Are we still talking about poles?
~The answer is yes!~I want you to know I understand the genius of this
Well, it* is about the only actual predator to the human species so we make a big deal out of it.
*polar bear specifically I mean
Salt water crocodiles absolutely will hunt humans.
Oh, that one is true, didn’t think of them old lizards, they even study the behavioural patterns of animals on land iirc.
How come no places are called No Wolves or No Lions or No Tigers?
Idk.
They don’t really prey on humans & we coexisted without much issues for humans (very much a lot of issues for them). Then that is not that hugely dissimilar with polar bears (seals are still better than humans).Eating a baby in case of big dogs & cats every so many years doesn’t really count I think, in nature it’s usually disregarded even if a regular thing bcs of the size difference (and the mortality rate to adulthood). A bit along the lines that babies of all species are food & that doesn’t give you much representative info.
With polar bears, even with villages in the migrating area (their ecosystem is shrinking rapidly), you just can’t be outside, they will munch you.
Hikers can hike through woods with wolves, you can park your car next to lions, … tigers would be borderline (and endangered), but it seems they fear us, they fear injury & our unpredictability generally (when forced to individuals can prey on humans, they were a few documented cases, but doesn’t seem the default behaviour).
Polar bears don’t back off if they need food, they can stalk you & (try to) break obstacles.
Maybe it’s just that it harder to fight of a polar bear just of it’s mass & power?Also wiki/Polar_bear_jail.
When tigers prey on people it’s usually when they are old. They get lazy and we are easy. Until the guns and poison come out.
Yes.
Lazy ~ everything is harder with age, you get physically worn out, all manner of injuries & chronic pains accumulate (teeth & paws included).
Taking the only available option when you need/decide to survive some don’t even consider an option, but a necessity.
There is a reason there are no lions left in Europe, we killed them. We killed most wildlife and only recently we have tried to bring those somewhat large predators back(wolves, bears, etc).
I am pretty sure if there were polar bears in the Mediterranean, and the rest of the history remained the same, they would also be considered extinct or endangered.
All you need is a lot of humans and time and eventually all big animal threats will be eliminated.
big animal threats
They don’t have to be threatening, just big, and a good source of meat. Plenty of docile megafauna went extinct in places just as soon as humans arrived.
They don’t even have to be known to humans, we destroy entire ecosystems without knowing the species, thousands of species wiped out for human convenience & resources (eg draining wetlands, or even greenhouse gases global climate change).
Did people kill the lions and cave bears and the like in europe? How far back was that. I know a lot of the species got limited to spain and greece in the ice ages.
we made doggos out of wolves :)
but lions and tigers… guess they were harder to spot among the foliage
but lions and tigers… guess they were harder to spot among the foliage
Lions live in the savanna and grassland. They can hide among the grass, but they generally hunt by chasing prey in turns until the prey tires. Tigers are ambush predators and excellent at hiding.
Healthy lions and tigers do not hunt humans. They can kill humans pretty easily, but prefer meatier prey. But when they get too old / sick to hunt wild animals, they might hunt humans out of desperation.
Also Asian lions have become used to humans since their protected area has tribal settlements and is surrounded by villages. Local people sometimes feed the lions, and on youtube you can find videos of people even touching them. (This is dangerous, messes with the lions’ ecology and is illegal, but people do it and stopping them now might cause new problems.)
Sounds like the beginning of a domestication process. RemindMe in 1000 years.
Actually dogs are a distinct lineage that shares a common ancestor with wolves. Our pals are more closlely related to african painted dogs or India’s endangered dhols. Maybe dingos count, idk if jackals are dogs actually, but I think that’s about it for wild dogs left.
Have you tried with catnip?
Oh my
We could accidentally release some polar bears in Antarctica, guess they could survive there.
Idk are there seals there? Because that’s the bear’s thing, ambushing seals coming up through their ice holes in the ince flows.
The polar bears would be fine. The penguins would be in for quite a comeuppance
Because the last time someone introduced an invasive species to a completely different environment worked extremely well.
Regular visitors to Sharks would like a word.
Not intentional prey, not eating the whole thing, not stalking.
You might as well say cows then too, they kill more ppl.
It was a joke. You see, I was suggesting that a place with lots of sharks might be called “Shark”, in keeping with the point of the original post.
I am aware that most shark attacks are due to mistaken identity, but it wasn’t meant to be taken too seriously.
Perhaps the reason sharks came to mind before any other animals is because I read this article a couple of days ago: https://www.standard.co.uk/hp/front/surfer-bitten-in-half-7232230.html
It stands out because the way it was reported makes it sound like the sharks executed a coordinated attack on the surfer. But, again, I didn’t expect to get cross-examined on what I intended to be a humorous remark.
Oh, sorry! :)
I got the joke, but seeing sharks as predators to humans always makes me think of the exaggerated story from the sinking of Indianapolis (wiki/USS_Indianapolis_(CA-35)) with all manner of bs added for fun, and a subsequent money grab books & movie (wiki/Jaws_(film)) that shaped entire generation’s minds bcs fear is so easily monetised.
Imagine being a 400 million years old species & then getting anti-propaganda from a species that live in an environment you can’t even move in (and die quickly). And they dump toxic trash all over your environment. And have been killing you en masse since the day they could.Similar to how made-up stories & fairy tales helped kill off the wolves in Europe even before their unsustainable habitation shrinkage/separation of areas.
What would the equivalent be for “penguins” and “no penguins”?
There used to be a penguin like animal in the north, the Auk. Hunted to extinction.
Linux / Windows
Pinkouinos / antipinkouinos ?
Pink wieners / anti pink wieners?
GREAT auk is called puinguinis, while penguins have various latin names.
Chat, is this true?
kinda, not really
arctic, from ancient greek ἀρκτικός did mean “of the bear” originally, probably as a reference to the constellation (cause i don’t think the ancient greeks ever went to the arctic to confirm if there were bears or not)
antarctica doesn’t mean “no bears”, it means “the opposite of the arctic”
the truth is less fun, but i guess you could still view arctic as “bear place” and antarctica as “not the bear place” and that’s still kinda funny i think
The arctic isn’t named after polar bears, but after the greek bear constellations which hold the north star. And the Antarctica is named after being the opposite of where the bear constellations are. It’s just a coincidence that the correct one has bears and the correct one doesn’t.
It’s a cool coincidence, though.
I mean, come on. The region called after the constellation with the north star, which aids with finding where the north pole is, has polar bears. Nice!
It’s still mind blowing, even if it is a coincidence.
You’re going to name constellations after things that you know well, so the fact that there are a lot of bears relative to other megafauna in northern regions means that in a way the original idea still holds, just not quite as basic.
Some constellations, including the Great Bear, were named long before our languages even existed.
Etymology wise we might say it comes from ancient Greek, but it’s also called Great Bear in languages that have no origin in Greek.
I’m going out on a limb here, but I believe the Great Bear is actually named after a great bear.
Not all cultures though. In Brazil, the Big Dipper is also known as “large anus of the snake”.
i don’t think names in other languages is great evidence, because they could just have adopted the same name regardless, since they presumably adopted the greek constellations as well.
Most cultures used to have their own almost entirely different constellations, the only stuff i think has some overlap is the really obvious simple ones like the southern cross.
The thing is that native American didn’t get the name from Greek, yet, it is still reference to a bear.
which cultures are we talking about here? i kinda don’t feel like going through every single set of native american constellations looking for ones that are bears…
It’s like when I see a place named “Westmoreland” I’m like "Ok, so someone thought, “there’s more land west of where I was, and I’m not very creative”.
if you dig deep enough that’s what almost all place names are, and as stupid as it feels it’s a great way to make fantasy place names feel not stupid.
There are a series of cities on the northeastern coast of sweden that all lie near the mouth of a long river, and those cities are quite literally named [Name of the river valley]-stream, while the rivers themselves are named [Name of the river valley]-river. It’s so profoundly stupid and yet no one ever thinks about it at all.
Luleå, on Lule älv. Piteå, on Pite älv. Umeå, on Ume älv. Etc etc…It could be a bastardization of moorland, a type of shrubby biome similar to heath
Wait until you find out about Greenland and Iceland!
Or Newfoundland.
or New York
new york (2) final.docx
new york (2) final.docx
Lol. I would need several extra hands to count the number of times I’ve had people email me documents with filenames like
Copy of new york (2) REVISED-final(1).docxif you need some extra fingers, you can just ask AI to generate some for you ;-)
